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Al-Azhar University- Gaza
Deanship of Postgraduate Studies
Faculty of Education
Department of Curricula and Teaching Methods
The Impact of Verb-Noun Collocations in the Paragraph Writing of Palestinian EFL
Learners in Gaza Universities.
Prepared by
Amina Ahmed Abu Ashiba
Supervised by
Prof. Dr. Hassan Ali Abu-Jarad
Professor of Applied English Linguistics
AL-Azhar University- Gaza
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillments of the Requirement of the Degree
of Master in Curricula & Teaching Methods
2017
II
III
I
" منكم والذين أوتوا العلم درجات " آمنوايرفع الله الذين
(12) المجادلة
''Allah will exalt in degrees those of you who believe and
those who have been granted knowledge''
II
DEDICATION
To Allah, The Merciful, I dedicate this humble work.
To my mother‘s soul, who sacrificed her life to see me successful.
To my father, brothers and sisters for their endless patience and
unwavering support that they have shown to me during this long, arduous
journey.
To everyone who helped and supported me.
III
Acknowledgement
First of all, all praise goes to Allah the Almighty for the blessing and
mercy given to me during my study and in completing this final project.
I am extremely grateful and proud to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hassan
Abu-Jarad for his support, encouragement, his valuable advices and
without his fatherly help, this effort would not have been accomplished.
I am grateful to many people who have contributed their ideas and time
in completing my final project.
I would like to thank my faithful friends who helped, encouraged and
motivated me to continue this research and never give up.
IV
Abstract
The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in
paragraph writing of Palestinian English as Foreign Language (EFL)
university students from first level to the fourth one. To measure the use of
verb-noun collocations in paragraph writing, there was a 50-minute task
(diagnostic test) of two sections; the first section handled collocation
topic via 30 multiple choice questions; while the second section handled
the paragraph writing skills via two paragraphs. Five verb-noun
collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice
of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis for the research
question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of
lexical verb-noun collocations in paragraph writing between the academic
levels in favor of fourth level, and without noticed differences between
male and female. The results of test confirmed that in spite of weakness in
the general level (on collocation knowledge and paragraph writing
proficiency), there were significant differences between the first and fourth
years which indicated substantial development in verb-noun collocation
proficiency. The vital implication was that the learners could use verb-
noun collocations in productive skill of writing.
Keywords: verb-noun collocation, Paragraph writing, Palestinian EFL
Learners.
V
هلخص الدراست
الإسن( ف اللغت الإنجلست على كتابت -أثر إستخدام الوتلازهاث اللفظت )الفعل
الفقرة لدي طلبت الجاهعاث الفلسطنت
هذفج انذراضت انحانت إن إكخشاف انطخىي انعاو لإضخخذاو انخلازياث انهفظت )انفعم
أجبت نذي طهبت جهست كهغت الإ بانهغتضى( وأثر عه يهارة كخابت انفقرة الإ –
وانطخىي انرابع. ونقاش هذف الأولانجايعاث انفهططت انطجه ض انطخىي
دققت( 50)بسي انذراضت اضخخذيج انباحثت أداة الاخخبار انخثهت باخخبار حشخص
خغر انطخقم عه ثر انأكم ي يخغراث انذراضت ويذي حننقاش انطخىي انعاو
انخغراث. بأحذ خخص كم يها طانذراضت ي ق أداةج , وحكىبعانخغر انخا
فقرة اخخار ي بذه, ف 30خاول يخغر انخلازياث انهفظت وحثم ب الأولانقطى
انخغر انخابع ي خلال كخابت فقرح ع يىضىع حى انثاح حاول انقطى
:وأههاانكخابت أثاءخباراث انطهىبت بعار حىضح الاع انباحثتححذذهى ي قبم
انحذد اضها . وأظهرث خائج انعانجت انهفظتحىظف خطت ي انخلازياث
نهخائج يا ه: الإحصائت
وجىد علاقت راث دلانت إحصائت واضحت ب يخغر انذراضت, بطخىي عاو -1
نصانح انطخىي انرابع دو نكهها,وبخقذو إجاب يهحىظ ب خائج انعخ يخذ
.وجىد حأثر يهحىظ نعايم انجص ب أفراد انعت
الإضى(, الأثر, كخابت انفقرة, دارض-: انخلازياث انهفظت )انفعمالكلواث الوفتاحت
انهغت الاجهست كهغت أجبت ف انجايعاث انفهططت.
VI
Tables of Contents
content page
Quraan I
Dedication II
Acknowledgement III
English Abstract IV
Arabic Abstract V
Table of Contents VI
List of Tables VIII
Table of Appendices VIII
Chapter 1 introduction
1.1 Introduction 2
1.2 Statement of the Problem 4
1.3 Research Questions 5
1.4 Hypotheses of the Study 5
1.5 Limitations of the Study 6
1.6 The Study Variables 6
1.7 The Purpose of the Study 6
1.8 Significance of the Study 7
1.9 Definition of Terms 7
1.10 Summary 8
Chapter2 literature review
2.1 Introduction 10
2.2 First Domain: collocation 11
2.2.1 Collocation Definition and Acquisition 11
2.2.2 Collocation between Grammar and Lexis 13
2.2.3 Collocation Categories 15
2.2.4 Collocation approaches 19
2.2.5 Collocations, Idioms, and Free Word Combinations 20
2.2.6 Collocation Importance 22
2.3 Second Domain: a paragraph 27
2.3.1 Paragraph Definition 27
2.3.2 Paragraph Characteristics 27
2.3.3 Paragraph Types 28
2.3.4 Common Writing Problems 29
2.3.5 A Paragraph-First Approach 32
2.4 Summery 33
Chapter 3 methodology
3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Previous Studies Related to Collocation 35
3.3 Previous Studies Related to Paragraph Writing 45
3.4 General Commentary on the Previous Studies 47
3.5 The Difference Between the Current Study and the Previous
Studies 49
3.6 Summery 49
VII
Chapter 4
Research Design and Methodology
Introduction 51
4.1 Research Methodology and Design: 51
4.2 Sample of the Study 51
4.3 Pilot study 51
4.4 The Study Variables 52
4.5 Instrumentation 53
4.6 Items of the Test 53
4.7 The validity of the Test 53
4.8 Reliability of the Test 55
4.9 Split-Half Method 56
4.10 Difficulty Coefficient of the Test 56
4.11 Discrimination Coefficient 58
4.12 The Research Procedures 59
4.13 Statistical Analysis Procedures 59
4.14 Difficulties faced the researcher 60
4.15 Summery 60
Chapter 5
Results, Discussions & Recommendations
5.1 Introduction 62
5.2 The Answer of the First Question 62
5.3 The Answer of the Second Question 63
5.4 The Answer of the Third Question 64
5.5 The Answer of the Forth Question 65
5.6 The Answer of the Fifth Question 66
5.7 Discussion of Results 68
5.8 Recommendations 78
5.9 Suggestions and conclusion 79
5.9 Conclusion 79
References 81
Appendixes 90
VIII
List of Tables
Number
of table Tittles of table page
1 The distribution of the sample according to gender 52
2 The distribution of the sample according to the academic level 52
3 Correlation coefficient of every item of the diagnostic test 54
4 Pearson Correlation coefficient for every skill in the
diagnostic test 55
5 (KR20) and Split half coefficients of the diagnostic test
domains 56
6 Difficulty coefficient for each item of the test 57
7 Discrimination coefficient for each item of the test 58
8 Sum of responses, means, std. deviation, and the % weight
and rank of the collocation section of the test. 62
9 Sum of responses, means, std. deviation , the percentage
weight, and rank of the writing paragraph field from the test 64
10 Pearson correlation coefficient to know the correlation
between collocations and writing paragraph 65
11 Means, std. deviation, t. value, and sig. level to know the
difference between male and female 66
12 means, std. deviation t. value , and sig. level to know the
difference between First and Four level 67
List of Appendices
number Subject Page
1. Test letter judgment 90
2. Study tool (diagnostic test) 91
3. Sample test 94
4. Referee Committee 100
5. Facilitating Researcher‟s Task 101
1
Chapter One
Background of the Study
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Statement of the Problem
1.3 Research Questions
1.4 Hypotheses of the Study
1.5 Limitations of the Study
1.6 The Study Variables
1.7 The Purpose of the Study
1.8 Significance of the Study
1.9 Definition of Terms
1.10 Summary
2
Chapter1
The Study Background
1.1 Introduction
Second language acquisition doesn't come from a vacuum. It‟s the outcome of many
integrated elements. Hence, learners should work on all these elements and do their
utmost to achieve competence when learning a whole language. Second language
learning largely depends on vocabulary as the building blocks from which learners start
their second language (L2) acquisition. The acquisition of any language lies inherently
deep within the first stages. Over the past decades, L2 vocabulary learning has become
the core of great research interests. The acquisition of vocabulary has been referred to in
the scientific researchers as a key aspect in the second language learning process,
especially when it comes to its incidental learning. In his input hypothesis, Krashen
(1989) argued that incidental acquisition of vocabulary naturally occurs by providing the
learner with comprehensible input. In addition, Krashen stated that acquisition occurs
only when the learners‟ attention is focused on the meaning rather than the form.
Dai and Yang (2011) mentioned that vocabulary is viewed as the most sizable and
unmanageable component in the learning of any language; whether foreign or native.
The acquisition of lexis is an integral part in the learning process. As far as any of the
world‟s major languages are concerned; aspects of language learning are dwarfed by the
proliferation of different meanings that may cover hundreds or thousands of words. This
is in addition to many infinite shifts in meaning brought about by contextual variables.
Language learners sometimes, if not often, feel that they are incapabable of remembering
the words that they have already learnt. Such words aren‟t stored in the memory
effectively in a way it is hard to recall them when necessary. The words must be
memorized in advance in order to have a mastery of vocabulary items and to help the
learners recognize them later.
Nowadays, the importance of vocabulary learning is undeniable by language
theorists and practitioners. It was believed in the past that teaching vocabulary could
only be possible through isolated lists, but recently, this concept has changed. The
3
common idea was that using vocabulary in communication and in language teaching is
crucially important. Furthermore, there was a belief that the more words we know; the
more fluently we can communicate. (Schmitt 2000, Coady& Hucking 2000, Richards &
Renandya 2002). Vocabulary can be classified logically into: synonyms, antonyms,
collocations and idioms. Such classifications are used to facilitate remembering words
and useing them correctly.
Collocations, two or more words always come together to be meaningful, is one of the
main aspects needed to acquire second language successfully ''knowledge of collocation
can assist learner‘s memory and develop second language learner‘s mental lexicon''
(Forquera - 2006). As all languages have their own vocabulary system and special
collocations. These groups of words might not have reasonable meaning resulted from
literal translation to other language, but they sound right on the native language. This
phenomenon requires further efforts on the part of the second language learners to
improve their communicative competences, enhance their fluency, and maintain lexical
cohesion.
Writing is one of the most complicated language skills because it involves all the
other skills as unique conventions. The written language exemplifies the language
structure of language more clearly than the oral. A competence in the written
composition allows a deliberate use of knowledge of structure from the smallest
structural component to the largest; including phonology, morphology, syntax, and
rhetoric. Modhish (2012; 56) “In general, writing in L2 is viewed as a demanding task
and for L2 learners to help them produce discourse that conforms to the norms of
discourse created by their native counterparts, they need to be familiar with the various
components of writing that would assist them to write effectively”.
Academic writing can be divided into two main categories. The first one conveys
the results of learning by informing others through: argument, explanation, description,
narration, paraphrase, persuasion, instruction, and reportage. The second category
focuses on developing thinking through: review, analysis, hypothesis, recollection, and
summery. Other useful divisions are between retrospective writing, which aims to
record and make sense of experience or material, and prospective writing, which aims to
reorganize and reorder that experience or material.
4
Johnson and Roen say “Learning to compose in an additional language means
learning to compose in an additional culture. Learning to write as the native- like, native
fluent, and coherent texts that are effective in a discourse community in an L2 cultural
setting involves much more than controlling sentence – level grammar and vocabulary. It
involves using of various kinds of knowledge at the discourse level as well as an
understanding of cultural assumption about how texts function in relation to readers and
writers and how communication among people occurs through text” Amer (p.9).
Written language is the mirror of culture. The strong relationship between language
and culture is undeniable. All nations try to convey their doctrines and document them
through writing. Many cultures have already disappeared because they had a spoken
system language only without having a written one. On the other hand, learning to write
like native speakers depends largely on how native expressions and collocations are
used.
English language is very important particularly to the Palestinian students in Gaza
strip as it witnesses on-going conflicts. Thus, English language casts light on their
cause; they also may need it to learn word collocations and use them in their writing as
to describe how miserable their life is but in an acceptable manner. This study tries to
cast light on a collocation as one of vocabulary categories that plays a vital role on
distinguishing between native speakers and second language learners and its
effectiveness in improving a paragraph writing.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Nearly most Palestinian students study English with a sole aim i.e. passing the
exams. The majority maximizes focusing on grammar and minimizes learning
vocabulary or other language skills. Thus they might be able to pass the English exams
but unfortunately they are unable to communicate. Despite their knowledge of
dictionary meanings, yet they do not know how to use them in meaningful contexts or
how the words are pronounced or collocated with other words and so on. Furthermore,
the students forget the exam material immediately after submitting it. The reason for this
is that they just memorize the words as single ones and keep them by heart. The goal of
the study is to enhance using collocations as integral parts of language and show their
effectiveness in improving a paragraph writing.
5
1.3 Research questions:
The main research question is:
What is the impact of using verb-noun collocations on the paragraph writing
proficiency among the Palestinian EFL university students of first and onwards to the
fourth level?
Answers to the following questions depend mainly on the research question:
1- What is the knowledge level of verb- noun collocation among Palestinian EFL
students?
2- What is the level of writing paragraph proficiency among Palestinian EFL
students?
3- Is there any statistical relation between the correct use of verb-noun collocations
and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL students?
4- Are there any statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the students'
knowledge of verb-noun collocations and paragraph writing proficiency due to
gender?
5- Are there any statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the students'
knowledge of verb-noun collocations and paragraph writing proficiency due to
academic level?
1.4 Hypotheses of the Study
1- The level of collocation competence among Palestinian EFL students is higher than
the passing grade level (60%).
2- The level of writing paragraph proficiency among Palestinian EFL students is higher
than (60%).
3- There are statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the correct use of
verb-noun collocations and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL
students.
6
4- There are statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the correct use
of verb-noun collocations and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL
students due to gender.
5- There are statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the correct use of
verb-noun collocations and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL
students due to academic level.
1.5 Limitations of the Study:
1- The academic limit: the study examines the use of verb-noun collocation in
paragraph writing.
2- The human limit: the study is restricted to the first level and the fourth level of
female and male English majors at the AUG.
3- The time and place limit: the study is conducted in the second semester of the
academic year 2017 at the AUG.
1.6 The Study Variables:
This study included the following variables:
1- The independent variable is the verb-noun collocation knowledge.
2- The dependent variable is the paragraph writing proficiency.
1.7 Purpose of the study:
The current descriptive analytic study tries:
1- To identify the existing level of knowledge of verb-noun collocation among EFL
Palestinian learners from the first level to the fourth level.
2- To identify the existing level of paragraph writing proficiency among EFL
Palestinian learners from the first level to the fourth level.
3- To investigate the existing relation between level of collocation knowledge and
paragraph wiring proficiency level.
7
1.8 Significance of the Study
This study may:
1- Help Palestinian EFL students to enrich their vocabulary background and know how
to use it correctly.
2- Persuade the teachers (in schools and universities) to pay further attention to
collocation through using it inside the classrooms and select appropriate methods to
teach it.
3- Benefit the supervisors as to choose new strategies to be used in teachers' training
courses and workshops.
4- Help syllabus designers to take collocation into their consideration when they deal
with curriculum.
5 - Motivate researchers to do further studies dealing with linguistic topics.
1.9 Definitions of terms:
1- Collocation: Lewis (1997, p.8) contended that competence and proficiency in a
language equals acquiring fixed prefabricated items. Collocations are a large part of
these word pairs and are defined as “the way in which words co-occur in natural text
in statistically significant ways” (Ghaniabadi , 2015, p86).
It is tech an arrangement of words which sounds natural. (Longman Dictionary).
The researcher defines collocation as the integration of two or more words which
often come together to give a new meaning.
2- Paragraph writing:
Zemach (2003, p11) a paragraph is a group of sentences about a single topic.
Together, the sentences of the paragraph explain the writer‘s main idea (most
important idea) about the topic. In academic writing, a paragraph is often between
five and ten sentences long, but it can be longer or shorter, depending on the topic.
The first sentence of a paragraph is usually indented (moved in) a few spaces.
Al-Haj (2005) defined the paragraph as a group of sentences connected with relevant
transition words that focus on one main topic. It consists of one topic sentence, three
supporting sentences and one concluding sentence which should be unified, coherent,
ordered and complete to form a well-organized paragraph.
8
Mokhamar (2016) defines English paragraph as”coherent related sentences dealing
with a single topic. It should contain certain components: the topic sentence, unity,
coherence, and adequate development. In fact, all these components overlap; using
and adopting them to achieve the writer's purposes will help him to construct an
effective paragraph".
The researcher defined paragraph as, a group of sentences organized around a central
topic. In fact, the cardinal rule of a paragraph writing is to focus on one idea.
3- 3- 3-3-3- 3- 3-
Palestinian EFL Learners
They are female and male college students at the first and the fourth academic level
who are enrolled in English department at AL-Azhar University – Gaza Palestine.
4- AL-Azhar University in Gaza:
It is a supreme educational academic institution. It concerns with offering high
education to Palestinian people in general and to people of Gaza in particular to
provide them with the technological and scientific progress in all life fields.
1.10 Summary
This chapter attempted to elucidate the study problem which identifies the impact of
verb-noun collocations on the paragraph writing of Palestinian EFL learners in Gaza
universities. It also included the study purpose, significance, operational definitions of
terms, limitations, variables and procedures. The next chapter will focus on the
theoretical framework.
9
Chapter Two
Theoretical Framework
2.1 Introduction
2.2 First Domain: verb-noun collocation
2.3 Second Domain: paragraph writing
2.4 Summary
10
Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework
2.1. Introduction:
This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of the study and the study terms
related to English collocation in general and the verb-noun collocation specially that
are identified by most educational practitioners as educational method used to enhance
and motivate learning English as a foreign language. For the purpose of the study the
researcher will build on what has been mentioned above and utilize the whole setting of
the verb-noun collocation in describing how first-year and fourth-year EFL students in
Gaza Universities utilize it to improve their English paragraph writing competence.
It is widely believed on a large scale that vocabulary learning is necessary for
learners to be able to write sound and correct paragraphs. Mokhtar and others (2010)
mentioned that vocabulary knowledge is classified in accordance with many criteria.
The first of which can be learnt through listening and reading which is regarded as
receptive or passive knowledge. The productive or active knowledge is the outcome of
using the words properly in spoken and written language. By virtue of this
classification, many pedagogical institutions and curriculum designers have adopted
this trend referred to so far.
The second part of vocabulary learning has been initiated by Anderson and
Freebody (1981). It relies on differentiating between two principal items: First, the
amounts of words that people know, and second the knowledge of deeply-rooted words
of any language. Hence, it's evident that there's a relationship between the words
themselves which in turn enhances the concept of the word association, collocation, or
colligation.
The third part has been proposed by (Nation, 2001). It is a more balanced and
logical framework of word knowledge. It covers three key domains: form, meaning,
and use that a learner must be acquainted in. Each of them is subdivided; firstly, the
form which concentrates on spoken or written elements. Whereas the meaning
circulates on the form and meaning put together in addition to the concepts, referents,
and associations. Secondly, the knowledge of word usage involves grammatical
11
functions and collocations. Aforementioned elements constitute an outstanding pillar
in the second language acquisition and learning. This study is investigating vocabulary
acquaintance i.e. collocation.
In this chapter the researcher will organize the discussion of the theoretical framework
in two domains; the first deals with collocations, and the second deals with the
paragraph writing competence.
2.2. The first domain: verb-noun collocation:
2.2.1. Collocation Definition:
Tremendous efforts have been exerted on the part of researchers to show the
importance of collocation in learning second language. Frith (1968: 179), known to be
the father of collocation, said „„you shall know a word by the company it keeps''. while
Davis (1939) defined it as ''the fractional implication of one word unit for another".
According to Cambridge dictionary, Collocation is defined as follows:
1. “a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that
sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be
expected from the meaning.”
2. “The combination of words formed when two or more words are often used together
in a way that sounds correct.”
Lewis (2000) mentioned that "Collocations might be described as the words that are
placed or found together in a predictable pattern. Examples range from two word
combinations such as „child problem‟ to extended ones such as He's recovering from a
major operation. Consequently, the task of achieving proficiency in a second language
is even greater than was thought. In addition, grammar rules are too general to provide
guidance for acceptable word combinations.
Collocation has special features. Some may argue that it is a tricky aspect of
learning English as second language. It may be hard for a learner to predict the actual
connotation of each word in a foreign language i.e. the word „coffee‟ is associated with
„heavy, hard, or cloying‟.
12
However, there is no reasonable reason why „strong‟ rather than „hard‟ should go
with coffee. One of the most important examples is called binomials which means
some familiar stereotypes have meanings that can be easily expected from the
component words such as „salt and pepper‟, „up and down‟; it is always used normally
by native speakers.
Gledhill (2000) thought that meaning develops across word clusters and not
through single words. Hatch (1992) agreed that collocation is a type of cohesive tie for
lexical items which means when a speaker says a word, the listeners will think of all
alternatives that have a relationship with this word as when somebody says „flower‟ the
others will think normally of the "stem, the petal, and the leaf " and so on.
On the other hand, Yule (1996) agreed that if someone hears „„ a hammer‟‟, most
people will connect it with ''a nail''. This simple way to organize words knowledge is
named collocation. The learner already knows which words can go together and give
sense such as „salt and pepper, husband and wife‟. El-Sakran (2005) explains that
when a speaker says ''table, butter'' the listener will think of ''chair, bread'' this is
because second language learners versify their knowledge in terms of collocation.
Collocation can be classified into two categories: the first is completely expectant
like '' spick-and-span''; but the second one is much less so. The words according to EL
Mashharaw‘s (2008) point of view have relationships to each other in a language. They
are stored in the brain in a complex map-like spider web called the mental lexicon.
Collocation is considered as one of the most difficult phenomena in English
language acquisition as a second language. The native English speakers automatically
know when, where, and how to use it in an acceptable manner. As Bazzaz and others
(2015) mentioned that collocation is considered an available cluster which can be easily
remembered. The second language learners who try to fulfill the mother tongue
eloquence must be concerned in collocation in order to produce familiar sentences that
resemble the ones spoken by the native speakers.
As collocation is stored in the native speakers‟ memory; it is easier to recall it and
use it axiomatically. Here, the collocation is unprompted without vocabulary
arrangement in the memory. In fact, English words don‟t appear as cluster in the
second language learners‟ memory.
13
Kim, &Bae (2012) explained that native speakers don‟t have the ability to
convince us of the reasons for using a certain expression. For example, its normal to
say „play baseball‟ but not „do baseball‟. Hence, the native speakers acknowledge that
acquiring collocation comes naturally through hearing and using English language
daily. Thus, they use it without being conscious of the correct expressions. On the
contrary, second language learners find it difficult to acquire collocation as they lack
the quality of using or hearing English daily. Consequently, collocation can‘t be easily
stored in their memories which in turn mirrors their inability to use it when translating
to their mother tongue.
Lewis (1997) said that collocation may be known as expectant formats consisting
of words that are formed together. The formats may extend from two word groups
such as '' dark night '' to enlarged expressions such as '' he's recovering from a major
operation ''. These language formats cover much of speech and writing, on the other
hand grammar rules are too general to provide guidance for acceptable word
combinations. Thus, learning collocation manipulates these dilemmas by providing
causal explanation for focusing on collocation.
As viewed by Saeed (1997) second language learners find it difficult to guess the
word meaning of a word that is written in a context or a sentence. These contextual
effects were studied by Frith (1957), Halliday (1966), and Lyons (1968) through
different perspectives. All of them agreed on one notion that a collocation pulls the
word meaning to a semantic dimension. For example, ''strong and powerful'' are two
adjectives with the same meaning and used with same items. But with the effect of
collocation, speakers can say ''strong tea'' rather than ''powerful tea'', while
''powerful car'' rather than ''strong car''. Other examples about this notion are the
names for groups like ''a herd of cattle'' but ''a pack of doges''.
2.2.2. Collocation between Grammar and Lexis:
The link between grammar and collocations is elaborated by Hill (2000, p.52) in
which “all the elements of natural language use are interdependent” and collocations
cannot be separated from the grammatical environment in which they occur. Ideally,
the grammatical elements and lexis in a collocation should be treated as a whole given
the interdependent relationship between grammar and collocations. The relationship
14
between grammar and (lexis of) collocations is described insightfully by Lewis (1993,
p.vi) as: “language [that] consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar” in
which grammar and lexis are not separable. In short, the dichotomy between grammar
and vocabulary is invalid since language consists of chunks of expressions rather than
individual words.
On the other hand, Sinclair (1966), in a volume of papers in memory of Firth, showed
an interest in generating lexical sets by the use of collocation. For Sinclair, grammar
and lexis are two different aspects. Grammar can be described by structures (syntagms)
and systems (paradigms), while the second one is lexical items collocating with one
another-collocations and sets respectively. According to Sinclair, collocation refers to
as the co-occurrence of two words, but this co-occurrence is not indicative of two
words occurring as a small fixed grammatical set. Instead, it has two important
features. First, there may be several or many words between the two relevant items or
the two relevant items may even occur over sentence boundaries. Second, collocation
is independent of grammatical types. In other words, collocation is not analyzed by
grammatical structures.
While, Barry (1977) handled the relation between two levels of linguistic form.
Both deal with stereotypes of elements. He confirmed that formal items are compound
aspects between grammar and lexis. While grammar is only interested in them, Lexis,
on the other hand, is interested in the formal items as individual ones. Barry also
compares between grammar and lexis formal contrasts. The level of grammar contrasts
are made by the differences between classes of items or structures whose elements are
realized by classes of items.
Barry confirmed that both the structure of grammar and collocation consist of ''
things'' occurring one after another in a sequence. On the other hand, many differences
can be found between the collocation of lexis and the structures of grammar. The first
difference waylays on the sequence of patterns formation which means the disposing of
each thing in the sequence is uninteresting on lexical collocation, but it's necessary on
grammatical structure. The second difference focuses on the generality of the ''things''
which formed the patterns. More information is needed to introduce acceptable results
in lexical study than in a study of grammatical structure.
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2.2.3.Collocation Categories:
Michael Lewis builds his classification on the basis of the number of words, which the
lexical unit enters into combination with (Lewis, 2000). According to this principle, he
distinguishes:
1) strong collocations, for example, the word auspicious is combined with only a very
limited number of words, such as, for example, in collocations: auspicious
occasion, auspicious moment, auspicious event.
2) weak collocations are combinations of words that can be used in an unlimited
number of phrases, such as: a tall woman, a red shirt, an expensive car, a loud
noise.
3) medium-strength collocations, i.e. those collocations in which the words are used
together with a greater frequency than with other words (for example, the
collocation to hold a meeting).
On the other hand, Benson, M. (1986) says that collocation (a group of words that
occurs repeatedly) can be divided into grammatical collocations and lexical collocation.
Grammatical Collocations
Benson, M. (1986) defines grammatical collocation as “a dominant word (verb, noun,
adjective) followed by a grammatical word, typically a preposition”. Examples are:
1) Verb-preposition combination (prepositional verbs): these are combinations of a
verb and preposition: abide by, abstain from, account for, aim at, and accuse
(somebody) of, look after, and struggle for.
2) Noun-preposition combination: access to, accusation against, administration for,
analogy between (to, with).
3) Adjective-preposition combination: absent from, accountable to (with) answerable
for (to) and -ed participle adjectives, -ing participle adjectives: accompanied by,
corresponding to.
4) Verb-participle combination (phrase verbs). Some verbs need to be followed by
specific adverbial particles.
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These are called “phrasal verbs” whose meaning is different from the meaning of
the separate constituents of the verb and the particle. phrasal verbs is combination of a
verb and a number of a closed set of adverbs: about, by, down, along, around, aside,
back among others: bring about, catch on, make up, call up, set out , step down.
The meanings of the grammatical collocations are more or less inferable from the
meanings of their parts, even though the prepositions in the collocations are not
predictable.
Lexical Collocations
Lexical collocations contain no subordinate element; they usually consist of
two equal lexical components. The major types of lexical collocations are:
1) Noun-verb combinations: adjectives modify, bells ring, bees buzz (sting, swarm)
birds chirp (fly, sing), blood circulates (flows).
2) Adjective-noun combinations: a confirmed bachelor, a pitched battle, pure
chance, keen competition, grave concern, sincere condolences.
3) Verb-noun combinations:
a. Verbs denoting creation-nouns: compile a dictionary, make an impression,
compose music, and inflict a wound.
b. Verbs denoting activation - nouns: set an alarm, fly a kite, launch a missile, wind
a watch.
c. Verbs denoting eradication and/or nullification-nouns: reject an appeal, recall a
bid, lift a blockade, invalidate a clause, break a code, eliminate a competitor.
4) Adverb–verb combination: Adverbs usually occur finally, but if we add a special
impression or emphasis, we move it before the verb: strongly suggest, barely see,
thoroughly plan, hardly speak, deliberately attempt.
5) Adverb–adjective combination: These are used to emphasize purpose, or when we
intend to add a strong a feeling or a special kind of behavior to adjectives: totally
acceptable (different), extremely odd, completely useless, successfully (barely)
finished (noticed).
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While Howarth (1993) tried to distinguish word combinations by dividing them into
four groups; the first group is “Free combinations”; the meaning of a free combination
is interpreted from the literal meaning of individual elements, like "drink coffee" or
“drink tea”. The second group is “Restricted collocations”, which are collocations that
are more limited in the selection of compositional elements and usually have one
component used in a specialized context, like "perform a task". The third group consists
of “Figurative idioms” which have a metaphorical meaning as a whole that can
somehow reveal its literal interpretation, like "do a U-turn". Finally, “Pure idioms”
belongs to the fourth group. A pure idiom is a single unit whose meaning is completely
unpredictable from the meaning of its components, such as "blow the gaff". This idiom
means "to cause trouble for someone by letting other people know something that they
were trying to keep secret”. As is clear, it is impossible to predict the correct meaning
of the combination.
Many researchers such as Yazdandoost, AmalSaleh, and Kafipour (2014) have
classified collocations through varied perspectives. The most well-known categories
are Idiomatic and Non-idiomatic Combinations. Firstly, the idiomatic categories are
formed from word groups whose meaning can't be predicted from the individual items.
They have fixed patterning. For example, the idiom „kick the bucket‟ means to die,
which has no relation to the meanings of the words „kick‟ or „the bucket‟.
The second category is the Non-idiomatic combinations. These combinations are
divided to free and restricted ones. As Bahns and Eldaw (1993) clarified that free
collocations are the least cohesive type of word combinations. The word „murder‟ can
be used with many verbs to analyze, condemn, and discuss (etc.) a murder. They
also clarified that restricted collocations are used frequently. whereas Non-idiomatic
combinations were divided by Benson (1997) into two main types, lexical and
grammatical collocations. The grammatical collocation consists of a noun, an
adjective, or a verb plus a preposition or a grammatical structure such as an infinitive or
a clause, while Lexical collocations consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.
On the other hand, lewis(1997) the founder of structural approach emphasized
using words in broad statements instead of using them as individual items. According
to this point of view, he divided collocations into two main groups: lexical and
grammatical collocations. He also believed that storing collocations in second
18
language learners‟ memory is an essential way to create useful vocabulary stockpile
and render English as a sound acceptable and normal language.
Brezia (2015) illustrated this point via different perspictive, he proposed identifying
collocation criteria which are ( distance, frequency, and exclusivity ). Firstly, the
distance limited the span around a node word ( the word learner are interested in ), the
distance of the collocation from the node can be as little as one word if speaker
interests in the adjectives immediately preceding a noun in English, or as much as a
span of four or five words on each side of the node, if speaker interests in more general
associations. The second criterion focuses on the frequency of use. It is an important
indicator of the typicality of a word association. For example, the noun ''love '' occurs
frequently with the preposition „in‟ and therefore „in love‟ is an important chunk in
English language. On the other hand, (love) is much more strongly and exclusively
connected with the noun (affair).When the word (affair) appears in text, there is a large
probability that the preceding word is (love).
In addition to the former criteria, Carter (1987) classified collocation into four
types:
1. Unrestricted: this type is open and often collocates with many items. For example:
take a walk / time / a look /a rest /.
2. Semi- restricted: this type of collocation is characterized by limited adequate
substitution or replacements of elements of collocation for example, harbor doubt/
grudges/ uncertainty/ suspicion. The other two categories include
3. Familiar: this is more restricted than second type, like: unrequited love, lukewarm
reception
4. Restricted: collocations which are fixed and inflexible, for example: dead drunk,
pretty sure.
Carter (Ibid) goes further in his classification by differentiating between two terms or
characteristics of words, which are “core” and “non-core''. The core occurs more
frequently in normal speaking that is why core can replace non-core items, for example
'eat' is a core word for gobble, dine, devour, stuff, and gormandize.
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On the other hand, Hausmann (1980: 101) categorizes all lexical collocations into a
„base‟ and a „collocator‟ as follows:
According to Hausmann (1999) the unchangeable item meaning after collocate is called
base and the other item selected by the base is called collocate. In a collocation, base
chooses collocate not vice versa.
2.2.4.Collocation Approaches:
Over the past decades, there have been three basic approaches to collocations.
They are referred to in this study as the lexical, the semantic, and the structural
approach. The lexical approach differentiates collocation as a separated level of lexical
meaning. While the semantic approach predicts meaning according to other word
influence, the structural approach focuses on balancing between grammar and lexis.
Further relevant details are mentioned in this study as regards these approaches. The
diversity of the different approaches to collocations is in fact beneficial for researchers
as it provides a fruitful variety of perspectives on the phenomenon. It is thus important
for researchers to consider which approach to adopt when embarking on studies on
collocations.
First : The lexical approach
This approach puts vocabulary acquisition in a central role in language acquisition and
it skillfully presents the arguments for this role. It claims that the word acquires its
meaning by the text which it occurs. While Frith, Halliday, and Sinclar agree that the
lexis is independent and separated from grammar. On the other hand, Frith added that
1- Verb+ noun (collocator) (Base) to carry insurance’
2- Noun + verb (Base) (collocator) Dogs bark
3- Adjective +noun (collocator) (Base) compelling argument
4- Verb + adverb (Base) (collocator) confess frankly
5- Adverb + adjective (collocator) (Base) hopelessly addicted
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the word meaning is the fact where the word collocates with another on strict limitation
e.g.'' make a cake'' but '' do your homework''.
On the other hand, Halliday mentioned that collocations are types of word building
whereas their main role is studying vocabulary. He argued that the collocation has a
strong argument which can express the meaning. For Sinclair, collocation is formed
from (node, span, and collocates). Node, the main item, can collocate with different
items. Span is the number of relevant lexical items on each side of node. Collocate is
the items are founded within span. Sinclair abandoned his old idea and created the
integrated approach which is interested only in both the lexical and grammatical
aspects of collocation.
Second: The structural Approach
The definition of collocation presented within this approach is based on the delineation
of collocations and separating it from other word combinations, mainly free
combinations, idioms and other combinations. Collocations are distinguished from free
combinations on the basis of whether the substitution of items in a words combination
are either arbitrary or semantically motivated (Zagrebelsky, 2007: 27).
2.2.5.Collocations, Idioms, and Free Word Combinations:
Collocation lies in the middle point between two separated magnates, idiom and
free word combinations. For most people, idioms are known as fossil expressions that
are hard to be guessed through items. For example, one can say ‘foot the bill’ (pay up)
but not „kick the bill or foot the ball‟. Other examples, we can say „got a finger in every
pie’ (is involved in many different things) but not got a hand in every pie, or got a
finger in every cake. Additionally, Mccarthy and Odell (2005:page: 6) said that
''Idioms are groups of words in affixed order that have unguessable meaning. For
example, pass the buck is an idiom meaning ' to pass responsibility for a problem to
another person to avoid dealing with it oneself ''.
The word combinations are a group of lexical items that follow the general syntax
rules without any restrictions on the words choice. The verb „read‟, for example, can
freely collocate with a story, a novel, a book and so on. Usually the meaning of the
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compound can be guessed easily by knowing the meaning of the individual words.
Some examples of compounds are car park, post office, and narrow minded''.
Collocations are language chunks with semantic restrictions to some degree,
whereby whose meanings can be built compositionally with a limited degree of
substitution of their lexical components, such as Good morning cannot be substituted
by *nice morning. Many English speakers use heavy not big when talking about a
smoker for example. One can also say:
A heavy smoker (but not a devoted smoker)
A devoted mother (but not a heavy mother)
Thanks a lot (but not Thank you a lot)
Change one‟s mind (but not change one‟s thoughts)
Many researchers such as Alsakran (2011), Howarth (1996), Lewis (2000)
agreed that a collocation lies between the two boundaries. it starts as a free
combination and once it is used habitually; it becomes more fixed until it becomes an
idiom. It is hard to distinguish between idioms and collocations.
While, Wood (1981) adopted both the semantic and syntactic criteria for
distinguishing between collocations, idioms, colligations, and free combinations. In
Wood's point of view, an idiom is fully non-compositional and non-productive, while
a free combination is fully compositional and productive. “Collocation is the way one
word co-occurs with another word, colligation is the way one word regularly co-
occurs with a particular grammatical pattern; so for example some verbs typically
occur with a particular tense, or a noun might typically appear preceded by a personal
pronoun, rather than an article, such as “pass my/your driving test, It's my/your/our
responsibility to..., but I'll take the responsibility for” and etc (Wood, 1981, p.87).
Besides, Benson et al. (1986b) distinguished collocations from other
combinations of words such as compounds, idioms, transitional combinations
(transitional collocations), and free combinations. The following is the summary of
the five types of word combinations, listed from the most fixed combination to the
freest one.
1. Compounds: The most fixed word combinations, are completely frozen, and no
variations at all are possible. The instances of nominal compounds are: floppy disk
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and aptitude test, and an illustration of compound verb (or phrasal verb) is break
through.
2. Idioms: Idioms refer to relatively frozen expressions whose meanings do not reflect
the meanings of their component parts. The illustrations of idioms are: to kill two
birds with one stone, to kick the bucket, to spill the beans, and so on.
3. Transitional combinations: The combinations whose meanings are close to their
component parts, regarded as more frozen and less variable than collocations.
Instances of such are: for old time's sake, the facts of life, to be in a tight spot,
and the like.
4. Collocations: They are loosely fixed; arbitrary recurrent word combinations and the
meaning of the whole do reflect the meaning of the parts. Pure chance, to commit
murder, close attention, and keen competition share the features of this category.
5. Free combinations: Free combinations are taken as the least cohesive of all
combinations. Their components are the freest in regard to being combined with
other lexical items.
2.2.6.The Importance of Collocations:
The key to determine whether a learner is using native-like language or not
rests on collocations. When producing a text, a language learner may face a variety of
problems as regards the combination of words related in a native-like manner. When
learning vocabulary we might understand the dictionary meaning of without knowing
how to use the word in a meaningful sentence.
The best way to learn vocabulary is to learn what words are commonly used
with the word in a collocation web. In fact, English foreign language learners usually
have a good grammatical competence and have high mark in grammar tests, but they
are unable to create natural and understandable speech and writing discourse as native
speakers do. So many scholars and researchers devoted much time and effort to
collocations and suggested different definitions and types.
Collocation is not only a necessary element of language but also an outstanding
feature that makes language specific and correct. Therefore, to learn English well
learners should attach much importance to collocation. Wallace (1982, p.27) in
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Teaching Vocabulary emphasizes that to know a word in a target language “may
mean the ability to use it with the words it correctly goes with, i.e. in the correct
collocation....” Indeed, among many items of a word listed in dictionaries, the usage
containing collocation information is very valuable and helpful. The aim of learning a
new word is to put it in practical use and to make sentences. collocations are
extremely useful for the language learner to be aware of and begin using when
developing their second language. English-native speakers are already aware of which
verbs co-occur with particular nouns, which adjectives frequently latch on to certain
nouns, and frequent and current idioms. An advantage of teaching collocations in the
language classroom can assist learners with fluency. Shehata (2008) declared that
pedagogical regimes need to pay more attention on collocations knowledge to make it
obvious and affordable to the second language learners as they lack experience in
using the words within their natural environment.
Collocation also provides a good way to memorize new words. Taylor is
quoted by Nation (2004, p.38) when giving the reasons for studying words in
collocation, “words which are naturally associated in context are learnt more easily
than those not so associated; vocabulary is best learned in context; context alone is
insufficient without deliberate association....” The context and the deliberate
association including collocations provide connections that help learners to deeply
understand a word‟s meaning and furthermore to add it to his or her current vocabulary.
While giving a clue to memorize new words, the method to learn words by collocations
also instructs learners to use right words in right time and place.
Many scholars have tackled the collocation importance one of them is Brown
(1974), who clarified that enriching students collocation competence is considered the
main reasons to achieve a language skill on both oral and written levels. Learners‟
progress and achievement can be measured by their mastery degree of the confused
combinations. Korosadowics (1980) believed that learners are constantly under the
influence of mother tongue which can be reflected in a combinational habit in the two
different languages. He also presents a pedagogical solving support of a collocation
process and makes it more effective by many steps, the first of which depends on
choosing of commonly used words together with using their common collocations and
put all the items in exemplary context and compare the chosen collocation with the
alternative in learners‟ first language.
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In addition, Laufer (1988) considered collocation as the corner stone in vocabulary
learning process. Sometimes, the learners face difficulties and problems in language
acquisition. Collocational deficiency is a pervasive phenomenon in learner English.
The learners are unable to choose the properties in vocabulary. They are apt to adopt
lexical simplification strategies such as using a synonymous or Ll-influenced
expression.
Mccarthy and O‟dell (2005) said that Learning collocation is a good idea
because it can:
1- Pave the natural way to say something: smoking is strictly forbidden is more
natural than smoking is strongly forbidden.
2- Offer you an alternative way of saying something which is more expressive or more
precise: instead of repeating, it was very cold and very dark, we can say it was
bitterly cold and pitch dark.
3- Improve your writing style: instead of saying poverty causes crime, you can say
poverty breeds crime; instead of saying a big meal you can say a substantial
meal.
Another main benefit to learning collocations is that the way a word collocates
can clarify the meaning of that word. Take, for example, the word “catch”. Students
will have no problem with the most literal meaning in the collocation “catch a ball” but
collocations like “catch a bus”, “catch a cold” and “catch your name” reveal the true
diversity of the meaning of the verb. Taeko (2005) clarified that the words which have
developed this kind of “diversified” meaning through collocation are known as
“delexicalized” words, in other words, they have lost their unique meaning because of
variations in usage. The words which have become most delexicalized are verbs, verbs
such as get, take, go, etc., which, in certain collocations, bear little semantic
resemblance to the “original” dictionary meaning. However, words of other parts of
speech have also become delexicalized and a typical example is the noun “way” which
ranges in meaning in collocations like “lose your way”, “way to go”, “a long way”,
“way off”, etc. It‟s useful for students to be aware of delexicalized words as it is those
words which form the most collocations. For that reason, these words show up on lists
of the most frequently used words in the language.
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Other verb-noun collocation Advantages in the Light of the
Traditional Teaching Methods
To Cultivate Students‟ Interest in Study: Dickinson (2008) mentioned that Since
traditional teaching methods and environment are unpopular, collocations as teaching
method effects naturally and humanely provides students with more access to
information through time and space. Thus, collocation teaching method offer a sense
of reality and functions very well, which greatly cultivates students‟ interest and
motivation in EFL class activities.
To Promote Students‟ Communication Capacity: Unlike traditional teaching
methods which hamper students‟ capacity to comprehend certain language structure,
meaning and function of the language, and make the students passive recipients of
knowledge, which may lead to difficulties in achieving the target of communication,
the collocation method seeks integration of teaching and learning and provides the
students greater incentives. Collocation activates students‟ thinking; which helps
them to transform English learning into capacity cultivation. In addition to this, in-
class activities as group discussion, subject discussion, and debates can also offer
more opportunities for communication among students and between teachers and
students.
To Widen Students‟ Knowledge to Gain an Insightful Understanding to Western
Culture: Verb-noun collocation can provide the students with abundant information;
more plentiful than isolated word learning, and help them to get displays of vivid
cultural background, rich content and true-to-life language materials, which are much
natural and closer to life. Not only could learners improve their paragraph writing
ability, but they also learn the western culture. Al Ghazali (2006) mentioned that,
Grasping information through various contents can equip the students with knowledge
and bring about information-sharing among students and make them actively
participate in class discussion and communication.
To Improve Teaching Effect: Collocation teaching method enriches teaching
content and make the best of class time and breaks the boring of teaching traditional
pattern via isolated words learning and fundamentally improves class efficiency.
Which is difficult for Arabic learners to have writing English natively. The utilization
26
of verb-noun collocation materializes the individualized and co-operative teaching.
The traditional teaching model mainly emphasized on isolated words learning. On the
contrary, collocation teaching method goes beyond time and space, creates more
vivid, visual, authentic environment for English learning, stimulates students‟
initiatives and economizes class time meanwhile increases class information.
To Improve Interaction between Teacher and Student: Collocation, as one of
modern (active) teaching method, stresses the role of students, and enhances the
importance of “interaction” between teachers and students. A major feature of this
kind of modern teaching is to train and improve students‟ ability to language basic
skills, and to develop their communicative competence, during this process, the
teacher‟s role as a facilitator is particularly prominent. Duan and Qin (2012)
mentioned that using collocation teaching method creates a good platform for the
exchange between teachers and students, while at the same time provides a language
environment that improves on the traditional classroom teaching model. In this way,
teachers in the classroom no longer blindly provide information and force students to
receive it in a passive way.
Collocations learning and teaching:
Constructivist views of language acquisition hold that simple learning
mechanisms operating in and among human systems for perception, motor action, and
cognition while exposed to language data in a communicatively rich human social
environment navigated by an organism eager to exploit the functionality of language
are sufficient to drive the emergence of complex language representations (Ellis 2003,
p. 63). As is clear from this definition, we can infer that these views consider
language learning (the terms learning and acquisition will be used interchangeably
here) the same as other kinds of learning. Frequency of occurrence is an important
factor, that is the more often a collocation is repeated in the environment (the input
here), the more likely that collocation will be learned.
A direct and simple way to do so is to teach them explicitly, as suggested by
Hill (2000). While, Woolard (2000) suggests that collocations are best taught to
learners by learning new words and know how to use the new vocabulary with other
words in context, not in isolations. Teachers may introduce some common collocations
27
associated with the new vocabulary to the learners. Nesselhauf (2005) also advocates
the conscious-raising activities by suggesting that learners should be made aware of the
phenomenon in which word combinations differ along a scale, ranging from free
combinations, collocations to idioms. In teaching collocations, language teachers may
need to determine which elements of collocations deserve particular attention. In other
words, collocations should be taught systematically and according to the degree of
difficulty, from the most to the least difficult. Another feasible way to implement the
teaching of collocations is by providing exercises which highlight much-neglected but
common collocations such as noun+ preposition+ noun (Woolard, 2009).
2.3 Second Domain: paragraph writing
2.3.1 Paragraph Definition:
Paragraph is defined as a group of sentences organized around a central topic.
Many researchers confirmed that a solidly written paragraph takes readers to a clear
path, without impediments. Many other researchers talked about the basic paragraph
structure that it usually consists of five sentences: the topic sentence, three supporting
sentences, and a concluding sentence. All of them must have unity, coherence, order,
and completeness.
2.3.2 Paragraph Characteristics (Elements)
A Paragraph must serve one constitutive idea. A good paragraph reflects three
main characteristics. First of all, a paragraph should announce its central idea in the
topic sentence and support it by many sentences to enrich the reader's understanding of
the main idea which is known as ''the paragraph unity‟‟.
Unity in a paragraph begins with the topic sentence. It sums up the main idea.
The paragraph is unified around this main idea, with the supporting sentences that
provide further details and discussion. The topic sentence should be thought of in the
context of the theme and the different points the writer is going to focus.
Zemach(2003:78) mentioned that unity in writing is the connection of all ideas to a
single topic. He also added that to keep unity in an essay, the writer should edit the
outline for irrelevant ideas to the topic sentence and review the text generally.
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Second, a writer should design a careful plan for writing to ensure the reader‘s
understanding of the intended meaning. In other words, every paragraph should be
“related to the thesis”, “coherent”. Coherence is the quality that makes the paragraph
more understandable. One of the best ways to achieve coherence is to use transition
words. These words create bridges between the different sentences. Zemach (2003:
82) said that coherence is related to unity; ideas that are arranged in a clear and logical
way are coherent. When a text is unified and coherent, the reader can easily understand
the main points.
Third, when writing a paragraph, the chronological order must be taken in
consideration. Here we mean the time sequence. Order refers to the writer‘s way in
organizing his supporting sentences; whether he choose the order of events
importance, or another logical presentation of detail, a solid paragraph always has a
definite organization.
Here are some examples of writing types and good ways to organize them.
Type of organization Type of writing
Order by time or order of events/ steps Chronology (historical events,
Personal narratives, processes)
Order by position, size, and shape of things Descriptive
Group ideas and explain them in a logical order Classification
Organize in point-by-point or block style Comparison /contrast
Order from least important to most important Argumentation / persuasion and
cause/ effect
2.3.3. The verb-noun collocation is used in various types of
Paragraphs, from these types: (Zemach and Rumisek; 2003)
Descriptive Paragraph
A descriptive paragraph describes a scene, a thing or a person. It aims at
giving a vivid picture of an object. Only the significant details should be given in a
descriptive paragraph.
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Narrative Paragraph
A narrative paragraph narrates an incident. The ideas are presented in a
coherent manner. The writer‘s way must be clear and consistent, and when the
occasion demands it, dramatic and full of suspense.
A Paragraph of Definition
A definition paragraph defines a person or an object. When a writer defines
things, he should use precise words and expressions. He has to be objective, scientific
and dispassionate in defining things.
A Paragraph of Similarities
When the writer wants to compare two things, he has to bring out the
similarities between them in a convincing manner. Sometimes he needs to use a
simile or a metaphor.
A Paragraph of Differences
When the writer wants to contrast two things, the differences have to be
expressed in an explicit manner. He can use linking words like (but, whereas, on the
other hand, on the contrary) etc.
Statement of Facts and Figures Paragraph
There are paragraphs which do not belong to any of the above categories and are
mainly concerned in giving facts and figures through a clear and emphatic manner.
2.3.4. Verb-noun collocation can be found in various paragraph
problem, as the following :
First: Sentence Fragments
There are different forms of common writing problems, some of which deal with
the three basic compounds of sentence (subject, verb, subordinating words). On the
other hand, Langan (1996) clarified that a correct sentence has to contain a subject,
verb and clear notion. If any component is lost, the writing will be fragment.
30
In the first type of sentence fragments, the student writes a group of words which
lack a subject, sometimes don‟t make sense .e.g. Daniel said he was bringing his
dinner. Also asked us to bring ours. (The second sentence misses the subject, to
correct it the writer should omit the period and make it one sentence. The correct
sentence is: Daniel said he was bringing his dinner and asked us to bring ours.
In the second type of sentence fragments, the student writes a group of words
which lack a complete verb .e.g. he suddenly saw his wife. Buried up to her head in the
neighbor‘s sandbox. (The fragment lacks both a subject and a complete verb. When
using a comma, the correct sentence becomes, he suddenly saw his wife, buried up to
her head in the neighbor‘s sandbox. The writer can use a full stop to separate the two
sentences but with clear verb like: he suddenly saw his wife. She was buried up to her
head in the neighbor‘s sandbox.
In the third type of sentence fragments, some sentences begin with dependent word
which leave the meaning uncompleted, especially when it begins with a subordinating
word or phrase such as (before, after, because, unless, until, when, how, since, unless,
whether). For example; (After I finished my work). It is a fragment sentence, although
it has a subject and verb, it doesn‟t make sense standing by itself.
The sentence fragment problems can be revised as follows:
1- Attaching the fragment sentence to combine into one sentence.
2- Dividing the fragment sentence to make two sentences.
Second: Run – on
It‟s a common writing problem formed from two independent clauses as Langan
(1996:316) defined "it is two complete thoughts that are run together with no adequate
sign given to mark the break between them. On the other hand, using a comma isn‟t
sufficient to join two independent clauses.
Such types of problems can be revised as follows:-
1- Separating the two independent thoughts by using a period and a capital letter.
2- Separating the two independent thoughts by using a comma and a suitable
conjunction word such as (and, but, before, so, or, nor, yet).
31
3- Using a semi colon to join the two complete sentences.
Thirdly: Subject-verb Agreement Errors:
The verb is the part of a sentence that connects the subject with everything else,
it tells many important things about what the subject does. On the other hand, a
subject is the part of a sentence that refers to the person or things doing the action.
These two main elements form the sentence via correlation built on agreement
in number (singular or plural). These errors can occur due to many reasons:
1- Modifiers separate the subject and the verb. The writer should be careful as
regards other words that come between the subject and the. For example, „The
new word processing programs that have every kind of option is are the best yet.
(Here the subject is plural, so the verb must have a plural form).
2- The verb is always plural when the parts of a compound subject are joined. For
example, John and Ann are going with us.
3- The elements closer to the verb determine whether the verb is singular or plural.
For example:
Either Karen or her daughter is going to pick up.
Either Karen or her daughters are going to pick up.
4- The verb may be either singular or plural when the subject is a collective noun,
depending on the context. Collective nouns are treated as singular.
For Example:
The class are / is going on a field trip to the museum.
The class of 2005 is / are going their separate ways immediately after graduation.
5- The indefinite pronouns as a subject are treated as singular or plural according to the
pronoun and its context e.g.
1- All of this book is as good as the first chapter.
2- All the books were by one author.
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2.3.5 A Paragraph-First Approach:
Teaching writing is one of the main aspects of second language acquisition. It has
many approaches to teach according to learner‟s level and ability. The common
teaching approach of writing is sentence-level mastery approach. This notion supposes
that both teachers and students have to master the sentence level in a certain degree
before moving to the following stage namely, the paragraph stage. After mastering
both cycles, the writer can move to the third and final unit of written discourse, the
essay.
Learners of EFL in schools and language programs have benefited from the
approach result which deals with sentence main elements specially grammar. Grammar
is dealt with as (grammar is writing) and (writing is grammar) which in turn has
changed into a teaching theory. While this theory has some problems e.g., the students
might not have the ability to master paragraph essay unless they have adequate
information about grammar. Most of the English language courses do their utmost to
develop the student‘s writing proficiency but it is still difficult to reach the mastery
level or help students reach the point of grammatical control. Finally, to achieve this
goal, English language teachers should be experts in English grammar but specialists
may argue that up-to-date English grammar resources may not be available on a wide
scale yet.
Many scholars like (Fawcett, 2013), (kirszner and Mandell, 2011) have suggested
that a perspective change may help the learners to surpass this dilemma. They also
argued that it is more productive and logical to start with paragraphs rather than
sentences or essays. For Gugin (2014) a paragraph is a group of sentences arranged
together to achieve unity and coherence. In other words, a paragraph-based approach
deals with vertical integration of grammatical instruction rather than horizontal
integration. This approach states that the organizational control takes place faster than
the grammatical one. Students can produce acceptable, readable academic writing in
English without completely mastering English rules. Finally, there are two main
notions to support the former approach:
1- In case the grammar isn't perfect, the reader can understand the well organized
paragraph or essay.
33
2- Even if the sentence grammar is perfect, the reader hardly understands the bad
organized paragraph or essay.
2.4. Summary:
This chapter handled two sections in the following order: the first section discussed
the collocation including the Collocation Definition and Acquisition, the distinction
between Collocations, Idioms, and Free Word Combinations. Collocation Importance,
Collocation Categories, Collocation between Grammar and Lexis. The second Section
discussed the Paragraph Definition, Common Writing Problems, Paragraph Types,
Paragraph Characteristics, and A Paragraph-First Approach.
34
Chapter Three
Previous Studies
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Previous Studies Related to Collocation
3.3 Previous Studies Related to Paragraph Writing
3.4 General Commentary on the Previous Studies
3.5 The Difference Between the Current Study and the
Previous Studies
3.6 Summery
35
Chapter 3
Previous studies
3.1 Introduction:
Lexical item meaning has much to do with other lexical items which are joined
with it. While these associations help the learner to identify these words to memory; they
also assist in delimiting the semantic level of word. Collocation knowledge could
obviously appear on writing skills. So, many scholars agreed that learning collocations is a
vital part in L2 acquisition, and it deserves a lot of studying and concentration by both L2
instructors and students. This chapter deals with some previous studies that were
conducted to identify the effectiveness or to measure the impact of collocation
acknowledge of learners in developing their skills or increasing their knowledge. These
studies are presented under two domains:
The first domain deals with the studies related to collocation. The second domain
presents studies related to paragraph writing. Some of these studies are local, others are
regional and the rest are international. These presented via four provisions: the study
aims, the study tools, the study results, the current study beneficialness from it.
3.2 Previous studies related to collocation
Buzzes, Abd Samad , bin Ismail, Noordin 's study (2015) tries to explore the use of
verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) among
Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. In this study, there were
212 participants (44) males and (168) females. To achieve this aim they used a 60-minute
task of writing story based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-
noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of
collocations. The results indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of
lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four
academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the
means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years,
between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year
which indicates substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. The vital
implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of
36
writing. The researcher has benefited a great deal from the previous study in writing the
theoretical framework related to the topic of verb- noun collocation and its effect on
writing skills. This study resembles the current study in the independent variable (verb-
noun collocation) and the sample level (EFL in university). On the other hand, this study
differs in the dependant variable (writing paragraph)and (the study tool (diagnostic test
aimed to measure two variables collocation competence through choosing question while
the second section is interested in measuring the writing skill via 5 collocation
employment on each paragraph.
Ghaniabadi , Marjane , Zareian's study ( 2015) focused on the use of adjective + noun
collocations by Iranian EFL learners based on noun abstractness. So, these collocations in
written productions of 28 students at Hakim Sabzevari University were found and
analyzed. The repetitions of high frequent patterns were compared to their frequency in
COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) corpus in order to find out whether
noun abstractness is a significant factor in learning and using adjective + noun
collocations. The results revealed that the adjective + abstract noun collocations were
more frequently and more efficiently used by Iranian EFL learners. The previous study has
little to do with the current study; however, the researcher has included it to organize her
ideas related to the collocation topic.
Shitu's (2015) study identifies the collocation errors, analyze their structural
compositions so as to determine whether there are similarities between students in this
regard and to find out whether there are patterns to these kinds of errors which will enable
the researcher to understand their sources and causes. As a descriptive research, the
researcher samples were some nine hundred essays collected from three hundred
undergraduate learners of English as a second language in the Federal College of
Education, Kano, North- West Nigeria, i.e. three essays per each student. The essays
which were given on three different lecture times were of similar thematic preoccupations
(i.e. same topics) and length (i.e. same number of words). The essays were written during
the lecture hour at three different lecture occasions. The errors were identified in a
systematic manner whereby errors so identified were recorded only once even if they
occur severally in students‟ essays. The data was collated using percentages in which the
identified numbers of occurrences were converted accordingly in percentages. The
findings from the study indicate that there are similarities as well as regular and repeated
errors which provided a pattern. Based on the pattern identified, the conclusion was that
37
students‟ collocation errors were attributable to poor teaching and learning which resulted
in wrong generalization of rules. The previous study has little to do with the current
study; however, the researcher has included it to organize her ideas related to the
collocation topic.
Phoocharoensi's study (2014) aimed to investigate the Thai EFL learners‟ collocational
competence with focus on the problems in their collocation use. The data elicited from
essays written by two groups of participants with different L2 proficiency levels, are
indicative of actual problems with which the learners are really confronted. With respect
to the sources of these collocational errors, native language transfer seemed to be the most
important contributing factor. Where the collocations in L1 Thai and L2 English are
incongruent, deviations often arise. The interlingual errors found pertain to preposition
addition, preposition omission, incorrect word choice, and collocate redundancy. It is
worth noticing that the high-proficiency learners heavily depend on collocational patterns
from their mother tongue, to which low-proficiency students are expected to resort. In
addition to L1 transfer, the participants also seem to rely on synonymy and
overgeneralization, both of which result in erroneous collocations in English.
Yazdandoos, AmalSaleh, Kafipour‟s study (2014) explored the relationship among
knowledge of collocation and reading, writing, speaking and listening proficiency of
Iranian EFL students. To this aim, 50 students involved in the study took a test of both
lexical and grammatical collocations to measure their collocational knowledge, first. Then,
an IELTS sample test (IELTS Practice Plus Pearson Education Longman University,
Version two) was administered in order to find the students‟ reading, writing, speaking
and listening proficiency. The findings indicated that knowledge of collocation can be a
predicator for all four language skills. In addition, knowledge of collocation has the
greatest impact on participants‟ speaking proficiency. This research confirmed the
influential role of collocation knowledge in essential language learning. The current study
has benefited from the previous study in writing the theoretical framework which is
related to the writing part.
Eidian, Gorjian, Aghvami's study (2013) aimed to measure up the impact of lexical
collocation instruction on pre-intermediate Iranian language learners' writing proficiency.
For the purpose of this study, 50 male and female Iranian learners studying English at
Ahvaz Islamic Azad University in Iran majoring in teaching English as a foreign language
38
were selected through non-random convenient sampling procedure. The results of the
proficiency test underlined the homogeneity of the groups. Then they were randomly
divided into experimental and control groups. The control group was taught based on
conventional methods of writing instruction and the experimental group received
treatment based on lexical collocation instruction in writing one paragraph essays. The
design of the research was based on pre and post-test method. Pre-test was a lexical
collocation test included 35 items focusing on collocations proposed in McCarthy and
O'Dell (2005). Pre-test was administered before the treatment period to make the
researchers sure that the groups' homogeneity on lexical knowledge in writing paragraphs.
During the treatment period five topics were administered to the participants to write one
paragraph essay for each topic. Having done the treatment, the researchers administered a
post-test on lexical collocation consisting of 35 items of multiple-choice, matching, and
cloze task dealing with lexical collocations acquired through the treatment. Then, the
results of the tests were analyzed through statistical analysis of Independent Samples t-
test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the scores of the
participants in the control and experimental groups. In addition, all the one paragraph
essays of the study were analyzed through analyzing the components of writing including
grammar, vocabulary, fluency, relevance and mechanics based on the checklist extracted
from Heaton (1990). The results also showed that there was a significant difference
between the mean scores of control and experimental groups in writing these components
(p<0.05). Lexical collocation instruction developed the writing components of vocabulary
and mechanics rather than grammar, relevance, and fluency in writing one paragraph
essays. This study assisted the researcher in writing the theoretical framework related to
the collocation topic, this study differ in variables, it deals with lexical collocation as a
holistic while the current study specialized in verb-noun collocation. This study resembles
current study in the sample level (university EFL).
Kim, Bae's (2012) study investigated the relationship of collocations to reading and
writing skills. Eighty-six Korean university students were given a collocation knowledge
test, followed by a reading test; both lexical and grammatical collocations in the
collocation test were extracted from the passages in the reading test. Subsequently, the
students were given a writing test, and its topic was related to the content of the reading
passages; both lexical and grammatical collocations appearing in their compositions were
counted based on the classification criteria provided in The BBI combinatory Dictionary of
39
English. The findings are as follows. There were no significant correlations between the
students' collocation knowledge and reading skills. However, a significant correlation was
found between writing quality and collocation use. Good and poor readers were similar on
average in both grammatical and lexical collocations, which corroborates the non
significant relationship between reading and collocation knowledge. In contrast, good and
poor writers showed significant differences in the use of both grammatical and lexical
collocations, thus substantiating the significant correlation between writing quality and
collocation use. The group difference was more pronounced in grammatical collocations.
Across good and poor writers, lexical collocations were used much less than grammatical
collocations. Taken together, these results support a need for EFL writers to learn both
grammatical and lexical collocations to improve writing quality. The results also cautioned
not to over generalize the influence of collocation knowledge on reading performance.
Hou's study (2012) aimed to identify the lexical collocation errors made by Non-
English Majors (NEMs) in Kaili University (KU) in their writing, which was intended to
help the researcher to decide how to utilize Corpus of Contemporary American English
(COCA) to raise their collocation awareness. Two writing tasks were administered to 150
NEMs in KU, resulting in a corpus of 300 essays. Lexical collocation errors in the texts
were identified by two raters using COCA as a reference corpus. The results revealed that
the most frequent collocation errors were collocations with verbs as nodes and the second
most ones were collocations with adjectives as nodes. Misuses of quantifiers were also
found in the corpus. Moreover, the students had more trouble in choosing an adverb to go
with a verb than choosing an adverb to go with an adjective. Then, an eight-week quasi-
experimental study was employed in the second study to investigate the effects of utilizing
COCA on raising learners‟ awareness concerning lexical collocations. This study included
the first week for pre-test and pre-writing, six weeks of instructional treatment, and final
week for post test, post writing, and questionnaire. The findings showed that the
participants achieved a significant improvement on their collocation performance in post
test after the 6-week treatment. They produced more correct collocations and fewer
collocation errors in post writing, but there is no significant difference between the pre-
writing and post writing on their use of lexical collocations. Besides, through the
questionnaire they expressed positive attitudes towards using COCA to learn collocation.
Bhumadhana, Gajaseni's study (2011) tries to explore the types and sources of
academic verb collocation problems of undergraduate students majoring in English at
40
Walailak University. In addition to comparing differences in the use of academic verb
collocations among three groups of students: low, moderate, and high English language
ability, and to examine the relationship between the use of academic verb collocations and
writing ability among three groups of students. The participants were 155 who enrolled in
second- and third-year English majors at Walailak University in the second term of
academic year 2009. The research instrument was the academic verb collocation writing
ability test, which was a writing test consisting of 21 items. The findings indicated the
importance of collocations in language learning and teaching in the classroom. The
researcher has benefited a great deal from the previous study in writing the theoretical
framework related to the topic of verb- noun collocation and its effect in writing skills.
This study resembles the current study in the independent variable (verb-noun collocation)
and the sample level (EFL in university), on the other hand this study differ in the
dependant variable (writing paragraph).
Bazzaz's study (2011) investigates the possible relationship between knowledge of
collocations and the use of verb noun collocation in writing stories because collocational
knowledge distinguishes native speakers and foreign language learners and is a significant
factor in productive skills especially writing. This study examined the correlation between
knowledge of verb noun collocations and their use in written essays. The participants in
the study were 27 PhD Iranian students in a Malaysian university. A specially constructed
C-test measured the subjects‟ collocational knowledge and the use of collocations was
measured by the number of collocations used in essays written by the subjects. For this
purpose, participants wrote six different stories in six weeks based on a writing task
designed to illicit verb noun collations. The statistical results demonstrate that there exists
a strong positive relationship between knowledge of collocations and the use of verb noun
collocation in the writing stories. The researcher has benefited a great deal from the
previous study in writing the theoretical framework related to the topic of verb- noun
collocation and its effect in writing skills, this study resembles the current study in
independent variable (verb-noun collocation) and the sample level (EFL in university), on
the other hand this study differ in the dependant variable (writing paragraph).
HONG's, and others (2011) study described the methods and the results of a corpus-
based investigation of the types and sources of verb-noun collocational errors in a sub-
corpus of a Malaysian learner corpus, EMAS (The English of Malaysian School Students).
The corpus consisted of 130 essays written by Form Four Malay learners from three
41
different states in peninsula Malaysia. This study was based on the intralingua theory and
Error Analysis framework was employed to conduct the analysis. Wordsmith Tools
software was used to generate the data for this study. To determine the accuracy of
collocations, the Oxford Collocations Dictionary and the online British National Corpus
(BNC) were referred to. Various types and sources of collocational errors were classified
and explained accordingly. The findings of this study indicated that of all seven types of
collocational errors, the one occurring most frequently is the preposition-related
collocational errors. With regard to the sources of collocational errors, intralingua transfer
was found to be the most prominent among the three major categories of sources of
collocational errors. This study resembles the current one on independent variable (verb-
noun collocation) but form different perspective it shed a light on error verb-noun
collocation.
ÁLVAREZ's and others article (2011) compared the use of the high frequency verb
take by both native speakers (NS) and advanced Spanish-speaking learners of English
(NNS) in three types of multiword sequences (free combinations, collocations and
idioms). The data were drawn from the Spanish subsection of the International Corpus of
Learner English and the Louvain Corpus of Native Speaker Essays. Following the
framework of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger et al.2002), they studied the
learners‟ linguistic behavior from the perspective of what combinations they use
significantly more or significantly less than native speakers. The results show that learners
significantly underuse collocations and free combinations, but significantly overuse
idioms. The researcher has utilized this study to help in writing the theoretical framework.
Alsakran's study (2011) examined the productive and receptive knowledge of lexical
and grammatical collocations among advanced Arabic-speaking learners of English.
Furthermore, it investigates whether the language environment (ESL or EFL) had an
influence on the acquisition of collocations. It also explored whether there was a
significant difference between participants‟ performance on three types of collocations:
verb-noun, adjective-noun, and verb-preposition. Data for this study were collected from
68 participants: 38 Saudi students at the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, and 30 Arab students in the Intensive English program at Colorado State
University. The participants‟ productive collocational knowledge was measured by three
gap-filling tests: verb-noun and adjective-noun collocation tests where the initial letter of
the collocate was provided and a verb-preposition collocation test where the meaning of
42
the phrasal verb was supplied. Their receptive collocational knowledge was measured by
an appropriateness judgment test in which participants have to circle the number
corresponding to the underlined part of a sentence that is judged unacceptable. The results
of the statistical analysis revealed that participants - learning environment had a strong
effect on the acquisition of L2 collocations. The ESL learners had significantly higher
scores than the EFL learners. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the
participants- productive and receptive knowledge of collocations. The participants
productive knowledge of collocations lagged far behind their receptive collocational
knowledge. The findings also revealed a statistically significant difference between the
three types of collocation. The participants performed far better on the verb-noun
collocations test than on the adjective-noun and verb-preposition collocations tests.
Overall, the results showed that Arabic-speaking learners of English demonstrated poor
knowledge of collocations on the four tests. The researcher got benefit from this study in
designing the study tools.
EL Mashharawi's study (2008) aimed at identifying, classifying and analyzing
collocation errors made by English and journalism majors at the Islamic University of
Gaza (IUG) following the descriptive analytical research, qualitative and quantitative
analyses of collocation errors. The participants of this study were engaged in a survey
sample that consisted of (245) Palestinian female and male English language majors and
journalism majors enrolled in the fourth level in the second semester of the academic year
(2007) at the IUG. English majors (Arts and Education) were (202) and journalism majors
were (43). To fulfill the aims of the study, a list of collocations was designed as a pilot
study to build a diagnostic test. Findings indicated that: The English language and
journalism majors at the IUG made different types of collocation errors which manifested
their lower and deficient competence in using collocations within English language and in
dealing with such collocations across Arabic and English language. Such weak linguistic
performance is attributed for various reasons. Both majors demonstrated limited
collocation knowledge as they depended on interlingual and intralingual transfers which
gave raise to different collocation errors in the first dimension. The current study gets
benefit from this study in designing the study tools (diagnostic test).
Hsu's study (2007) investigates the use of English lexical collocations and their
relation to the online writing of Taiwanese college English majors and non-English
43
majors. The study data were collected from 41 English majors and 21 non-English majors
at a national university of science and technology in southern Taiwan. Each student was
asked to take a 45-minute online English writing test, administered by the web-based
writing program. The test was also used to measure writing fluency of the two student
groups. Test results were examined to answer the two major questions for correlation (1)
between the subjects‟ frequency of lexical collocations and their writing and (2) between
the subjects‟ variety of lexical collocations and their writing. The study findings indicated
that: (1) there seemed to be a positive correlation between Taiwanese college EFL
learners‟ frequency of lexical collocations and their online writing scores; and (2) there
seemed to be a significantly positive correlation between the subjects‟ variety of lexical
collocations and their online writing scores. This study assisted the researcher in writing
the theoretical framework related to the collocation topic, it differ with the current study
in variables, it deals with lexical collocation as a holistic while the current study
specialized in verb-noun collocation.
3.2.1 Comments on Previous Studies Related to collocation
By going through the previous studies, the researcher's background has been enriched
regarding different types of collocation and its impact on different language skills. From
previous studies, the researcher notices the need of adopting a diversity of methods of
teaching collocation in order to achieve fulfillment in our EFL demands. Some studies
confirmed the necessity of applying different methods of teaching collocation.
3.3 Previous Studies Related to a Paragraph Writing
Abu Rass's study (2015) aimed to investigate problems facing Palestinian Arab
students from Israel who are majoring in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in
developing well-written paragraphs in English. They usually transfer the stylistic features
of their first language, Arabic to the target language, English. For example, they tend to
write long sentences with coordinating conjunctions (Al-Khatib, 2001), repeat themselves
and argue through presentation and elaboration (Almehmadi, 2013), and often talk around
the topic and repeat phrases before stating the main points (Alsamadani, 2010). The data
had been accumulated for the last fourteen years include samples of 205 students, which
show similar repeated types of mistakes and errors made by the participants of the first
44
year writing course. The accumulated data show that students face many problems in
writing good topic as well as concluding sentences, supporting details by adding examples
and reasons and using discourse markers appropriately. To help these learners write good
samples of paragraphs in English, a variety of approaches such as contrastive analysis,
error analysis, and the process approach have been employed. The findings indicated that
by the end of their first school year, most of them succeed in writing topic and concluding
sentences. However, (1) providing supporting details including examples and reasons is
not fully mastered; (2) the style of English is not completely acquired: Some students
continue transferring the style of Arabic writing; and (3) developing a cohesive paragraph
using the right coordinators and transition words still needs a lot of practice.
Toofan, Maghsoudi & Madani's study (2014) considered the significant effects of
two important independent variables self-monitoring and peer-monitoring in writing
activities on Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. In this research they
were supposed to investigate self-monitoring & peer-monitoring effects on 173 male and
female learners‟ writing activities whose age ranged from 16 to 27, and they had a
composing description writing paragraph as pre & posttest in the same conditions. This
research studied about self monitoring and peer-monitoring procedures which had new
effects on learners‟ written tasks.
Daif-Allah, and Albesher‟s study (2013) identifies the discourse markers used by
Saudi EFL learners in their paragraph writing. The study was conducted on fifty students
of the Preparatory Year Program at Qassim University. Data were collected from one
hundred paragraphs written by the students at the end of the first and second semesters of
the academic year 2012/13. These paragraphs were analyzed qualitatively and
quantitatively in terms of the number of discourse markers used and their categories
preferred in written paragraphs by three raters. The findings of the study revealed that the
students overused the additive connectors followed by the causative, the contrastive and
the illustrative ones. In addition, the students‟ use of writing discourse markers is too
limited and the ones that were most frequently used are “and”, “in addition”, and “for
example”. The findings also indicated that the subjects of the study wrote too many simple
sentences in their paragraphs in a choppy and immature manner and that their use of
discourse markers did not develop as they progressed in education. The results also
showed a positive and direct relationship between test scores and the use of discourse
markers. A number of reasons were found to underlie the lack of using discourse markers
on top of which were the teaching materials and examinations. The study concluded that
45
students‟ ability to use discourse markers should be developed as a condition to improve
their writing fluency and that their writing instructors should bridge the gaps in writing
course books by suggesting necessary supplementary materials. The study suggests further
extensive research investigating the misuse of discourse markers in the different language
skills among students of different majors.
Estalkhbijari, and Khodareza's study (2012) aims to investigate the effects of warm
up tasks as classroom activities on foreign language written production. For showing these
effects, sixty out of one hundred forty Iranian sophomore EFL students from the Islamic
Azad University of Lahijan branch, Iran were selected after following the Oxford
Placement Test (OPT). The students were randomly divided into two groups; the
experimental group who received the treatments on warm up tasks, and the control group
who received a placebo. Both groups had to write two paragraphs of about 150 words that
were considered as their pretests and posttests. The paragraphs were corrected by three
experienced raters. Their scores analyzed through SPSS by applying Independent t-test,
and Paired sample t-test. The findings revealed that participants in the experimental group,
who had received the treatments on warm up tasks, significantly enhanced better
performance in a writing test.
Ranjbar, Pazhakh & Gorjian's study (2012) attempted to investigate the effects of
lexical bundles on Iranian EFL learners‟ paragraph writing production fluency. To achieve
this purpose, an English language proficiency test was administered to 120 language
learners studying TEFL at Islamic Azad University of Dehloran. Ultimately, 90 language
learners were selected and randomly divided into two groups of control and experimental
groups, based on their proficiency test scores. Both experimental and control groups
worked on the same text- book content. The experimental group subjects were instructed
on the lexical bundles use extracted from True to Life text- book, while the control group
received placebo treatment during the course. The treatment took a whole academic
semester. The results of the post-test showed that lexical bundles teaching methodology
proved effective and influential in developing Iranian EFL language learners‟ paragraph
writing fluency. So, Developing English language skills, here writing skill in general and
paragraph writing in particular, also, needs appropriate methods of which lexical bundles
teaching methodology can be named. Since, lexical bundles use during instructional
courses, help language learners have an automatic and easy recall of them in the process of
paragraph writing, lexical bundles teaching methodology should be applied to having a
46
better understanding of the text- books materials and to develop language skills.
Therefore, the study suggests that content developers should include lexical bundles
teaching methodology and their uses in the teaching and learning processes. The findings
of this study gave empirical support to this view. Hence, this is pedagogically central in
the domain of language teaching and learning and should be taken into account in the
design and production of suitable instructional materials and in the methodology of
classroom teaching and students learning behavior.
Bagheridoust, and Husseini's study (2011) tries to investigate the efficacy of
illustrations as an assessment tool in improving the English paragraph writing among high
school graduates. Participants in two intact groups are offered a writing test with and
without illustrations to identify if illustrations affect writing test results. Via SPSS
software results were compared and illustrations proved to be effective in writing test
results.
Toluei, Rasekh's study (2009) investigates the effect of Iranian EFL students'
proficiency level on their ability in identifying paragraph boundaries of unparagraphed
expository texts and in producing paragraph boundaries in their own L2 expository
writings. Further, this study seeks the correlation between advanced and intermediate
learners' ability to identify and produce paragraph boundaries. On the basis of their scores
on the general proficiency test of Michigan, intermediate and advanced EFL students
studying in the English department of University of Isfahan participated in receptive and
productive tasks. The results of data analysis indicate that proficiency is connected with
paragraph perception, a fact more observable in productive performance; at advanced
levels, students seem to be more skillful in the appropriate boundary placement.
Moreover, identification performance has a positive medium correlation with production
in the case of both advanced and intermediate groups of EFL learners.
Laud, and Patel's study (2008) measured the effectiveness of a writing strategy
designed to enhance the organization and cohesion of paragraphs written by four students
with writing difficulties that are currently enrolled in a resource program. The strategy
steps were taught through a mnemonic in which steps beginning with each letter of
UNITE provided an overall action plan: 1) Unload all you know in note form; 2) Note
categories and arrange facts into each; 3) Identify categories in your topic sentence; 4) Tie
detailed sentences together with transitions; 5) End with an exciting conclusion. A self-
regulated strategy development (SRSD) model was used to teach these steps. All four
47
students made marked improvements according to measures of organization, completeness
and cohesion. These gains were maintained over time and transferred to assignments done
in classes outside the resource setting. Students also seemed to enjoy writing more after
learning this strategy.
3.3.1 Comments on Previous Studies Related to a paragraph writing
The mentioned studies handled the term of paragraph writing among many
aspects and considerations (activities, methods and strategies of paragraph writing) with
different samples (school and universities students) and instruments (Placement Test, pre
and post test), which presents rich background about a paragraph writing. All of these
studies agreed on the paragraph writing importance. On the other hand, other studies were
about difficulties encounter EFL in learning paragraph writing.
3.4 General Commentary on the Previous Studies:
Reviewing the previous studies related to the theme of this study has enriched
the researcher‟s background and widened her scope in this regard. The available
studies are varied between applied studies and fundamental ones. They are conducted
by different researchers in different countries, universities, and administrated on
students in different academic levels, and they have employed varied kinds of tools to
achieve their aims. There are relationships (similarities and differences) between
studies in each domain and the current one. It can be concluded that there is an
increasing interest in teaching collocation in a language classroom, as approved by
most of the researchers who investigated in this field.
Some of the above studies have shown students‟ improvement in language
performance as a result of implementing collocation teaching. These studies covered
different language skills which are positively influenced and improved as a result of
teaching collocation; there were many similarities and slight differences between
these studies, as tests and statistical treatements revealed that there was a significant
difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both
between and within the four academic years as in Bhumadhana, Gajaseni's study,
Hsu's study, Bazzaz, Abd Samad, bin Ismail, Noordin 's study. Some of the above
studies have shown students‟ improvement in language performance as a result of
implementing collocation teaching via the quasi-experimental approach as in Eidian,
Gorjian, Aghvami's, Hou's.
48
while some other studies like those of Shitu's, EL Mashharawi's, Bhumadhana,
Gajaseni's agree with the present study in the research methodology; all adopt the
Descriptive approach describing the effectiveness of using collocation in English
language skills (the relation between collocation knowledge and others language
skills). Some studies as those of Yazdandoos, AmalSaleh, Kafipour's indicate that
knowledge of collocation can be a predicator for all four language skills, and confirm
the influential role of collocation knowledge in essential language learning as general.
While the present study resembles Bazzaz, Abd Samad, bin Ismail, Noordin,
Hsu's Bhumadhana, Gajaseni's, Eidian, Gorjian, Aghvami's studies which handled the
writing proficiency, the present study differs in focusing in paragraph writing while
other studies handle the writing proficiency according to various aspects such as
online writing, essay writing, story writing. However, none of the previous studies
had combined verb-noun collocation knowledge as related to the paragraph writing
proficiency which is the main purpose of this study. Accordingly, this study will be
applied on English students of English Department investigating their collocation
knowledge and writing proficiency.
As the above review indicated, collocation plays an important role in the process
of language learning and teaching. It is very important for EFL learners to improve
their fluency, and enhance their communicative competence. Knowing the importance
of collocation in all four language skills is advantageous in finding new ways and
strategies to improve the student‟s language proficiency. As shown above, much
research has been conducted on the impact of collocation on EFL/ESL learners‟
language learning; some of them are conducted to find common collocational errors
that language learners make; some other studies have been conducted to focus on the
relationship between collocations and language proficiency; however, to the best of
the researchers‟ knowledge little empirical research has been conducted on its
contribution to four language skills.
Previewing those related studies may be reflected on the present study as
follows:
- Writing the theoretical framework, and introduction.
- Designing the tool of the study (diagnostic test).
49
- Using a suitable statistical analysis to get the data.
- Discussing the results and giving recommendations and suggestions.
3.5 The Difference between the Current Study and the Previous ones:
This study differs from the previous studies in the following points:
1. The theme of the study which is measuring the competence of verb-noun collocation
of Palestinian EFL Learners in Gaza Universities and its impact on the paragraph
writing, whereas the related previous studies focused on measuring the effect or the
impact of collocation in general or other classifications of collocation such as adjective
noun collocation and connecting them with other variables.
2- The sample of the study consists of (116) male and female Palestinian EFL Learners
among the first and the fourth level from English language department at Al-Azhar
University- Gaza.
3.6 Summary
This chapter reviewed some previous studies which varied according to the
techniques, instruments, design and variables. The researcher divided the studies into two
parts; studies related to verb-noun collocation, and studies related to paragraph writing.
The researcher provided comments post each study and a general commentary related to
the whole mentioned previous at the end of the chapter. Since this chapter is specified for
the previous studies relevant to the subject of the current study, it expanded the
researcher's background and broadened her understanding of the subject of the current
study.
50
Chapter Four
Research Design and
Methodology
Introduction
4.1 Research Methodology and Design:
4.2 Sample of the Study
4.3 Pilot study
4.4 The Study Variables
4.5 Instrumentation
4.6 Items of the Test
4.7 The validity of the Test
4.8 Reliability of the Test
4.9 Split-Half Method
4.10 Difficulty Coefficient of the Test
4.11 Discrimination Coefficient
4.12 The Research Procedures
4.13 Statistical Analysis Procedures
4.14 Difficulties faced the researcher
4.15 Summery
51
Chapter 4
Research Design and Methodology
Introduction
This chapter contains the procedures followed throughout the study. It introduces
a complete description of the methodology of the study, the population, the variables,
the sample, the instruments, the pilot study, moreover, it introduces the statistical
treatment for the study findings.
4.1. Research Methodology and Design:
The study adopted the descriptive analytical approach due to its relevance and
suitability for investigating the study purpose, which tries to describe the impact of
collocation knowledge on paragraph writing.
4.2 The Study Sample
The population of the study consisted of all students (males and females) enrolled
in English Department at the AL Azhar University - Gaza in the academic year (2016
– 2017). The total population of the study was (166) students.
4.3. Pilot Study:
The pilot sample consisted of (30) students (male and female) selected
randomly from the population of the study EFL students currently enrolled in the
English Department at Al Azhar University - Gaza. The results were recorded and
statistically analyzed to assess the validity and reliability of the test, as well as time
allocation. The items of the test were modified in light of the statistic results.
4.3.1. Overall Study Sample:
When the researcher started with the data collection procedure (applying the
Diagnostic test on the students to be solved); (16) copies of the test were not included;
(21) students didn't respond and (13) copies were omitted because they were not fully
answered, so the final sample consisted of (116) students (males and females) who are
enrolled in the English Department at
52
Al Azhar University - Gaza during the academic year (2016–2017). In order to figure
out the characteristics of the study sample, frequencies and percentages were calculated.
The results are listed below:
Table (1)
The distribution of the sample according to gender
Gender No. % Male 58 50
Female 58 50
Total 116 100
As shown in table (1), the gender factor is equal as represented by fifty eight of the
students representing (50%) of the total sample are females, and fifty eight of the
students that make (50%) are males.
Table (2)
The distribution of the sample according to the academic level
the level No. %
first 58 50
Fourth 58 50
Total 116 100
For the academic level: both of two levels are equally represented by fifty eight
of the students representing (50%) of the total study sample are in the first level and
fifty eight of the students representing (50%) of the total study sample are in the
fourth level.
4.4. The Study Variables:
This study included the following variables:
1- The independent variable is the verb-noun collocation knowledge.
2- The dependent variable is the paragraph writing proficiency.
53
4.5. Instrumentation
The researcher believed that the most suitable instrument for achieving the study
purposes is conducting a diagnostic test for describing and analyzing data for
investigating knowledge level of English verb-noun collocation among Palestinian
EFL learners from the first level to the fourth level, and their ability to employ it
correctly in paragraph writing. The researcher referred to many resources in
designing the test, and consulted English doctors, experienced lecturers and teachers.
4.6 Items of the Test:
Two sections of questions were designed to investigate learners‟ competence in
collocation production and paragraph writing, the first section deals with collocation
knowledge consisting of (30 items) divided to (16) multi-choice items and (14) fill-in-
the-blank items, while the second section deals with paragraph writing skills to
investigate the collocational correct use; each participant was asked to write two
paragraphs about story he/she already read or saw on a film, and the second paragraph
is about students‟ future hopes; in consideration of the following writing skills rubric:
1- Using five collocations correctly.
2- Paragraph unity.
3- Paragraph coherence.
4- Productive topic sentence.
5- Supporting sentence
The students were not allowed to consult any dictionary and each of them was given
sufficient time to individually work on the test questions. They were also informed
that this study does not count violations in spelling, articles, punctuations, and other
grammatical points. The test time was 50 minutes.
4.7. The validity of the Test
Al Agha (1996, p.118) states that "a valid test is the test that measures what it
is designed to measure", While, Bynom (2001:1) defines validity as the truth of the
test in relation to what it is supposed to evaluate. It is concerned with the relevance
and usefulness of what is to b measured. Accordingly the current study used the
referee validity and the internal consistency validity
54
4.7.1. The Referee Validity
The test was introduced to a jury of specialists in English language and methodology
in Gaza universities, Ministry of Education and experienced supervisors.
4.7.2 The Internal Consistency Validity
Al Agha (1996: 121) asserts that the internal consistency validity indicates the
correlation of the score of each item with the total average of the test. It also indicates
the correlation of the average of each domain with the total average. This validity was
calculated by using Pearson Formula. Table (3) shows the correlation coefficient of
every item of the diagnostic test.
Table (3)
Correlation coefficient of every item of the diagnostic test
collocation
No. Pearson Correlation No. Pearson Correlation
1 **0.559 16 **0.546
2 **0.875 17 *0.415
3 *0.423 18 *0.412
4 **0.819 19 **0.672
5 **0.773 20 **0.642
6 **0.671 21 **0.929
7 **0.735 22 **0.465
8 *0.408 23 *0.374
9 **0.828 24 **0.733
10 **0.835 25 **0.515
11 **0.875 26 **0.875
12 **0.588 27 **0.476
13 **0.679 28 **0.803
14 **0.633 29 **0.659
15 **0.656 30 **0.716
writing paragraph
No. Pearson Correlation No. Pearson Correlation
1 *0.421 6 **0.545
55
collocation
No. Pearson Correlation No. Pearson Correlation
2 **0.634 7 **0.733
3 **0.779 8 **0.785
4 **0.808 9 **0.791
5 **0.766 10 **0.806
*r table value at df (28) and sig. level (0.05) = 0.361
**r table value at df (28) and sig. level (0.01) = 0.463
The table shows that correlations of the test items were significant at (0.05,
0.01), which indicates that there was a consistency between the items and this means
that the test was highly valid for the study.
Table (4)
Pearson Correlation coefficient for every skill in the diagnostic test
Skill Pearson
Correlation Sig. level
Collocation **0.801 sig. at 0.01
writing paragraph **0.837 sig. at 0.01
*r table value at df (28) and sig. level (0.05) = 0.361
**r table value at df (28) and sig. level (0.01) = 0.463
As shown in the table (4), there is correlation between the scopes and the total
score, and each scope with the other scopes at sig. level (0.01) that shows a high
internal consistency of the vocabulary test which reinforces the validity of the test.
4.8. Reliability of the Test:
The test is regarded reliable when it gives the same results in case of applying
it again for the same purpose in the same conditions (Al-Agha, 1996:120). On the
same track, Fraenkel and Wallen (1996:10) defined reliability as the degree to which
scores obtained with an instrument are consistent measures with whatever the
instrument is measuring. According to these definitions, the researcher used the
following two methods to calculate the reliability of the test.
56
4.8.1 Cronbach‟s Coefficient Alpha:
The researcher calculated the reliability of the test by using Alpha Cronbach‟s
formula:
(K) is the number of items of the test, (s χ2) is the variance of the total test marks
where (s j2) is the component of the test and (j) is sample questions of the test
(Cronbach‟s and Richard, 2004). The normal range of Cronbach‟s coefficient alpha
value between (0.0 and 1.0), and the higher values reflect a higher degree of internal
consistency.
4.9. Split-Half Method
The reliability of the test was measured by KR20 and the Spilt- half
techniques. Table (5) shows (KR20) and Split half coefficients of the Writing
achievement test.
Table (5)
(KR20) and Split half coefficients of the diagnostic test domains
Split half coefficients
of the test domains KR20
No. of
items scope
0.933 0.954 30 collocation
0.922 0.889 10 writing paragraph
0.896 0.915 40 Total
The results showed that the Spilt-half coefficient is (0.896) and KR20 is (0.915) and
this indicates that the reliability of the test was high and strong.
4.10. Difficulty Coefficient of the Test:
Difficulty coefficient is measured on the pilot study by finding out the percentage
of the wrong answers of each item made by the students (Abu Nahia, 1994:308). The
coefficient of difficulty for each item was calculated according to the following
formula for the pilot study which counted (30):
Difficulty Coefficient = No. of students who gave wrong answers
X 100 the total number of students
57
Table (6) Difficulty coefficient for each item of the test
No. Difficulty coefficient No. Difficulty coefficient
1 0.56 21 0.50
2 0.50 22 0.38
3 0.44 23 0.38
4 0.56 24 0.31
5 0.50 25 0.38
6 0.63 26 0.56
7 0.56 27 0.38
8 0.44 28 0.63
9 0.50 29 0.38
10 0.56 30 0.50
11 0.50 31 0.63
12 0.44 32 0.38
13 0.56 33 0.38
14 0.44 34 0.56
15 0.63 35 0.50
16 0.44 36 0.25
17 0.50 37 0.63
18 0.63 38 0.31
19 0.38 39 0.44
20 0.69 40 0.25
Total difficulty coefficient 0.48
Table (6) shows that the difficulty coefficient wobble is between (0.25 – 0.69)
with total average of (0.48) This means that each item is acceptable or is in the normal
limit of difficulties according to the assessment and evaluation specialists.
58
4.11. Discrimination Coefficient: This means the test is able to differentiate
between the high achievers and the low achievers. The discrimination coefficient was
calculated according to the following formula:
Discrimination
Coefficient =
No. of the students who
have the correct answer
from the high achievers -
No. of the students who have
the correct answer from the
low achievers
No. of high achievers
students
No. of low achievers students
Table (7) shows the discrimination coefficient for each item of the test:
Table (7)
Discrimination coefficient for each item of the test
No. Discrimination coefficient No. Discrimination coefficient
1 0.63 21 0.75
2 0.75 22 0.50
3 0.38 23 0.25
4 0.63 24 0.63
5 0.75 25 0.50
6 0.50 26 0.63
7 0.63 27 0.50
8 0.38 28 0.75
9 0.75 29 0.50
10 0.63 30 0.75
11 0.75 31 0.75
12 0.88 32 0.75
13 0.63 33 0.75
14 0.63 34 0.63
15 0.50 35 0.75
16 0.38 36 0.50
17 0.50 37 0.25
18 0.75 38 0.38
19 0.75 39 0.38
20 0.63 40 0.50
Total Discrimination coefficient 0.59
59
Table (7) shows that the discrimination coefficient wobble is between (0.25 –
0.75) with total average (0.59). That means each item is acceptable or in the normal
limit of discrimination according view of point of assessment and evaluation
specialists.
4.12. The Research Procedures:
The following steps were followed by researcher in order to achieve the study goal:
1- Reviewing the literature related to collocation and paragraph writing.
2- Preparing study tool (Diagnostic test) and checking their reliability and validity by
the appropriate scientific methods.
3- Consulting a number of specialists and considering their comments and opinions
for checking the validity of the measurements.
4- Choosing a pilot study that consists of (30) Palestinian EFL Learners in Al-Azhar
Universitie.
5- Making some modifications on the study tool according to the pilot study result.
6- Choosing the study sample that consists of (116) Palestinian EFL Learners in Al-
Azhar Universities.
7- Applying the measurement on the sample members.
8- Data analysis: the subject‘s answer sheets were collected and analyzed. The
correct answers were marked. As the aim of this study was to investigate the
collocational competence, other violations were excluded and not considered as a
wrong answer. The answer reflected a correct choice of lexicon, but
ungrammatical items was judged to be correct, for example: He thought he was ---
------ a favor. In this case, answers such as do, done, and doing were all
considered correct because the study focused on the production of collocation
semantically, not syntactically.
9. Analyzing the collected data by statistical means.
10. Interpreting the results and answering the hypotheses of the study.
11. Presenting recommendation and suggestions in light of results.
4.13. Statistical Analysis Procedures:
The data was collected and computed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS). The following statistical techniques were used:
60
1- Frequencie percentages: were calculated to identify the personal features of the
items for the study sample and to determine their responses to the statements
including the main methods of the measuring tool.
2- Split-half and Alpha Cronbach techniques were used to assess the reliability of
the scale items.
3- Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of the relation
between the statements and the methods.
4- T. Test Independent Samples was used to control the intervening variables and to
measure the statistical differences in means between the two groups due to the
study variables.
5- Spearman correlation: to determine the internal consistency validity of the test.
4.14. Difficulties faced the researcher:
1- There was a shortage of references related to the topic in the local libraries.
2- The researcher encountered a great difficulty in collecting the sample and pursuit
the sample members to take it seriously.
4.15 Summary:
This chapter described how the research was conducted, the study tool, the reliability
and validity of the study tool, the data collected and statistical treatment of the data.
61
Chapter Five
Discussion, Results, and
Recommendations
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Answer of the First Question
5.3 The Answer of the Second Question
5.4 The Answer of the Third Question
5.5 The Answer of the Forth Question
5.6 The Answer of the Fifth Question
5.7 Discussion of Results
5.8 Recommendations
5.9 Suggestions and conclusion
5.10 Conclusion
62
Chapter 5
Discussions, Results, & Recommendations
5.1 Introduction
This chapter includes the findings, and the answers of the study‘s questions,
testing the hypotheses as well as the results of this study discussed, from various
viewpoints, briefly in this chapter and finally it ends up with recommendations and
suggestions.
5.1 The Answer of the First Question
The first question is: What is the level of collocation competence among
Palestinian EFL students?
Therefore, the First Hypothesis is stated as: The level of collocation competence
among Palestinian EFL students is higher the passing grade level than (60%).
To answer this question and test this hypothesis, the researcher used the sum of
responses, means, std. deviation, the percentage weight and rank of each field from
the diagnostic test as in table (8):
Table (8)
Sum of responses, means, std. deviation, and the % weight and rank of the
collocation section of the test.
Table (8) shows that according to the sample number (116) and the collocation
question number (30), the total mark is (3480), while the number of correct answers is
(1316); therefore, the percentage weight equals (37.82%) and mean = (11.345). The
mean is clearly less than the middle value (15). This means that the significant
differences indicate that the results of the calculated percentage are lower than the
predicted percentage (60%). Thus, the first hypothesis of the study is rejected.
Field Total Mark Sum of correct
answers Mean
Std.
Deviation
%
weight
Collocation 3480 1316 11.345 4.523 37.82
63
This humble result mirrors the deteriorated level of collocation awareness
among Palestinian university students. The researcher thinks that this is due to the
following reasons:
1- Collocation is one of the applied linguistic aspects that mightn‟t have enough
focus on the English curriculum implemented in Palestinian schools and
universities.
2- As mentioned in the theoretical part, collocation is one of the principal factors
of language acquisition natively, it only stimulates student‘s interest in passing the
exams rather than having enough language practice.
3- Collocation in spoken and written original English is considered a vital topic
which can be taught or acquired via co-curricular activities or everyday life (the
fertile environment of English language) this is perhaps difficult to find in the
Arabic mother tongue language.
4- Using traditional teaching methods which generally focus on grammar with less
emphasis on vocabulary or language skills. They show particular interest in the
receptive language skills on the account of productive ones.
5- The test mightn‟t have been taken seriously on the part of the various sample
members.
5.3 The Answer of the second Question
The second question is stated as: What is the level of writing paragraph
proficiency among Palestinian EFL students?
Therefore, the second Hypothesis is stated as: The level of writing paragraph
proficiency among Palestinian EFL students is more than (60%).
To answer this question and test this hypothesis, the researcher used the sum
of responses, means, std. deviation. And the percentage weight and rank of each field
from the test; table (9) shows this:
64
Table (9)
Sum of responses, means, std. deviation. and the percentage weight and
rank of the writing paragraph field from the test
Field Total Mark Sum of correct
answers Mean Std. Deviation % weight
writing paragraph 3480 735 6.336 6.697 21.12
According to the sample number (116) and the writing questions (30), Table
(9) shows that the total mark is (3480) while the correct answers are (735), so the
percentage weight equals (21.12%) and mean is (6.336). This shows that the mean
was clearly less than the middle value (15). This means that the significant
differences indicate that the results of the writing paragraph level are lower than the
predicted percentage. Thus, the second hypothesis of the study is rejected.
This low result mirrors the humble level of paragraph writing among
Palestinian students. This is due to the following:
1- Using traditional teaching methods which mainly focus on grammar rather than
vocabulary or language skills and just show interest in the productive language
skills regardless the productive language ones.
2- Finally, the test might not have been taken seriously on the part of the sample
students.
5.4 The Answer of the third Question:
The third question is stated as: Is there any statistically significant relation between
the correct use of verb-noun collocations and paragraph writing among Palestinian
EFL students?
Thus, the third hypothesis is stated as: There are statistically significant
differences at (a< 0,05) between the correct use of verb-noun collocations and the
paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL students.
To answer this question and test the hypothesis, the researcher used the
pearson correlation coefficient, and table (10) shows this:
65
Table (10)
Person correlation coefficient to know the relation correlation between
collocations and writing paragraph
*r table value at df (114) and sig. level (0.05) = 0.174
**r table value at df (114) and sig. level (0.01) = 0.228
Table (10) shows that there is significant correlation between collocation and
writing paragraph at the level (0.01). This result revealed strong relation between
verb-noun collocations knowledge and paragraph writing proficiency. Thus, the third
hypothesis of the study is accepted.
5.5 The Answer of the fourth Question:
The fourth question is stated as: Are there statistically significant differences
at (a< 0.05) between verb-noun collocations knowledge and paragraph writing due to
gender?
Based on the fourth research question, the fourth hypothesis is stated as:
There are statistically significant differences at (a< 0.05) between the correct use of
verb-noun collocations and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL students
due to gender.
To answer this question and test this hypothesis, the researcher used T. test,
and table (11) shows this:
Verb-noun collocation Sig. level
writing paragraph
**0.279 Sig. at 0.01
66
Table (11)
Means, std. deviation, t. value, and sig. level to know the difference between male and female
“t” table value at (114) d f. at (0.05) sig. level equal 1.96
“t” table value at (114) d f. at (0.01) sig. level equal 2.58
Table (11) shows that the calculated T value is less than the tabulated T value
at (<0.05). The table shows also weak differences between female and male result in
favor of female. The results show general weakness in terms of gender, and both
genders need assistance and acknowledgement. Thus, the forth hypothesis of the
study is accepted.
5.6 The Answer of the Fifth Question:
The fifth question is stated as: Are there a statistically significant differences
at (a< 0,05) between verb-noun collocations knowledge and paragraph writing due to
the academic level?
Based on the fifth research question, the fifth hypothesis is stated as: There are
statistically significant differences at (a< 0,05) between the correct use of verb-noun
collocations and the paragraph writing among Palestinian EFL students due to the
academic level.
To answer this question and test this hypothesis, the researcher used T.test, and table
(12) shows this:
Field gender N Mean Std.
Deviation T sig Sig. level
Collocation male 58 10.741 4.157 1.444
0.152
Not sig.
female 58 11.948 4.821
Writing paragraph
male 58 6.879 6.720 0.873
0.385
Not sig.
female 58 5.793 6.688
Total
male 58 17.621 8.857 0.071
0.943
Not sig.
female 58 17.741 9.346
67
Table (12)
Means, std. deviation t. value , and sig. level to know the
difference between first and fourth level
“t” table value at (114) d f. at (0.05) sig. level equal 1.96
“t” table value at (114) d f. at (0.01) sig. level equal 2.58
Table (12) shows that the calculated T value is more than the tabulated T value
at (<0.01) on collocation field and the total scores, which means that there are
significant differences between the first the fourth levels in favor of the fourth level.
The significant differences indicate that the results of the fourth level are better than
those of the first. Thus, the fifth hypothesis of the study is accepted.
The overall results of the analysis supported the conclusion that:
1- Palestinians EFL learners, even at the advanced academic level, still have difficulty
in using verb-noun collocation. The overall competency was found to be
unsatisfactory. It implies that the teaching and learning in the second language
should concentrate on the vocabulary acquisition rather than grammar-oriented
approach.
2- Paragraph writing is a problematic skill for Palestinians EFL learners. Negative
transfer and literal translation into Arabic writing style have heavily influenced the
production of an acceptable paragraph by Palestinians EFL learners.
3- It was proved that there was positive relation correlation between verb-noun
collocation knowledge and paragraph writing competence.
4- It was also proved that there was no influence of the gender variable; however, the
academic level has shown a difference in favor of fourth level.
Field N Mean Std.
Deviation T sig Sig. level
Collocation
First
level 58 10.224 4.313
2.744
0.007
sig. at
0.01 Four
level 58 12.466 4.485
Writing paragraph
First
level 58 4.828 6.570
2.480
0.015
sig. at
0.05 Four
level 58 7.845 6.534
Total
First
level 58 15.052 8.666
3.251
0.002
sig. at
0.01 Four
level 58 20.310 8.754
68
5.7. Discussion of Results:
In the following, I shall first discuss the key findings related to the objectives of
the whole thesis and then assess the credibility of the research. The main objective of
this thesis was to study the impact of verb-noun collocation of the paragraph writing of
Palestinian EFL learners in Gaza universities through empirical research, to measure the
size of the problem and suggest teaching methods that further expert knowledge
development in teaching collocation. Furthermore, this study also explored learning
verb-noun collocation as a tool for enhancing the participants‟ abilities in paragraph
writing competence, and examined whether demographic variables such as gender and
academic level affect these competence. The overall purpose was to investigate the
potential of using verb-noun collocation on improving paragraph writing competence.
As a summary of the findings of the study, it is fair to claim, that enriching verb-
noun collocation background seems to enhance paragraph writing competence, and thus
further linguistic professional growth. Interestingly, the study indicates that even a
short exposure to the impact of verb-noun collocation of the paragraph writing of
Palestinian EFL learners in Gaza universities can enhance awareness and understanding
of the importance of teaching collocation. The results of the present study were
consistent with previous research in the EFL section and confirmed the poor knowledge
of collocations among EFL students.
Regarding the relationship between the students‟ collocation knowledge and
writing, students‟ mean scores on the paragraph writing tasks section of the test were
compared by using the Pearson‟s Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient to find out
the correlation between the students‟ production of academic verb collocations and their
writing ability. The finding revealed that there was a moderate-level relationship
between the students‟ use of academic verb collocations and their writing ability at the
significant level of (0.05). In this study, it could be said that students who gained high
scores on collocations also gained high scores on paragraph writing. The results from
the present study were consistent with Eidian, Gorjian, Aghvami's (2013) study, which
revealed that collocation knowledge was a source of fluency in written communication
among college students; and the quality of collocations in terms of variety and accuracy
was indicative of the quality of college students‟ written production, and with Hsu‟s
69
(2007) study, which found that there was a significant correlation between the students‟
fluency and variety of collocations and their online writing scores.
The result of the study discovered that the learner‘s knowledge of English
collocation is somewhat unsatisfactory; and that the EFL learners have inadequate
mastery of collocations. A number of factors could have contributed to the findings.
First, it is possible that they lack awareness of the existence of collocations. It may also
be that they are not well supported on vocabulary specialization and this may be due to
the fact that collocation is not included in the compulsory English courses and that may
cause the learners to not pay much attention to acquiring the collocation skills.
In addition, the analysis of paragraph writings showed that the subjects' learning
process for verb-noun collocation developed quite significantly while this
developmental process regarding relevance and fluency takes place to a lesser extent.
Therefore, there was a positive effect of verb-noun collocation instruction on
components of writing paragraph. According to these results, collocational knowledge
is a source of fluency in written communication among students. For many previous
years, it could be strongly argued that lexical collocation instruction can significantly
influence EFL pre-intermediate language learners' developing writing proficiency.
While this study and other contemporary ones showed that instruction on lexical
collocation should be encouraged to replace conventional single-item vocabulary
instruction for the purpose of enhancing EFL learners‟ writing abilities.
On other perspective, the researcher believes that the study result sound
unsatisfactory, but they are still somewhat logical and pragmatic because collocational
deficiency is a pervasive phenomenon in learning English as a second language. Second
Language learners, be the English language or any other language learners, often fail to
choose the correct combination of two or more words due to their unawareness of
collocational properties in vocabulary and the arbitrariness of the second language
system. They are apt to adopt lexical simplification strategies such as using a
synonymous or Ll-influenced expression.
In line with this study, many others studies confirmed that the low collocational
level of Arabic-speaking university students majoring in English in EFL contexts; EL
Mashharawi's study (2008) in which the participants at the English language and
journalism majors at the IUG made different types of collocation errors which
manifested their lower and deficient competence in using collocations within English
language and in dealing with such collocations across Arabic and English language;
70
Alsakran's study (2011) which investigates whether the language environment (ESL or
EFL) has an influence on the acquisition of collocations and then the results showed that
Arabic-speaking learners of English demonstrated poor knowledge of collocations.
On the other hand, many studies supported the current study results concerning
the positive correlation between lexical collocation (verb-noun is one of lexical
collocation categories) and writing competence as that of Bazzaz, Abd Samad , bin
Ismail, Noordin 's (2015) in which the participants achieve a 60-minute task of writing
story based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture by using three verb-noun
collocations. The current study is also supported by Hsu's (2007) study in which each
student was asked to take a 45-minute online English writing test, administered by the
web-based writing program, with employing the lexical collocation. Many of the
previous studies agreed with the current study results in the confirmation that the mean
is significantly different between the first year students and that of the fourth year ones,
which indicates substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency as the
students proceed with their academic program.
Teaching Collocation:
The important point is that learning words in isolation does not necessarily help
L2 learners become successful communicators, since many parts of language consist of
prefabricated chunks so that learners have to acquire not only the new words but also
their collocations. Despite the importance of collocations, researchers have indicated
that collocations are an inherent problem for L2 learners and one of the difficult aspects
of vocabulary learning for learners of a foreign or second language including advanced
learners and professional translators who may continuously stumble over which words
go hand in hand with which appropriately.
Nowadays more teachers have realized the importance of teaching collocation,
but as for how to teach collocation there are still different arguments. Some teachers
hold the view that since collocation can be learnt through extensive listening and
reading, we don‟t need to spend much time teaching collocation explicitly in class.
Explicit collocation teaching is important as part of the class should be devoted to the
explicit teaching of collocation. When it comes to teaching collocations, there seems to
71
exist two conflicting views: some researchers believe that collocations can be learned
incidentally through implicit instruction such as extensive reading (Nation, 2001), while
others argue that collocations should be learned explicitly through direct instruction
(Bahns & Eldaw, 1993; Nesselhauf, 2003; Seesink, 2007).
Explicit processes that involve the construction of explicit knowledge are
conscious, deliberative processes; they may either take place when learners are being
taught the target items and rules by an instructor or when they consciously search and
try to develop concepts and rules on their own. According to the findings of the study,
the students had developed their know-how of choosing correct verb-noun collocation,
and at least in this case collocation seemed to be more about enhancing understanding
than memorizing or reproducing information.
Implementing Collocation in the Classroom:
Despite the benefits and usefulness of collocations for learners, learning how to
produce them is actually quite challenging, students need to develop preferences, and
make word choices, which they feel are appropriate. Collocations tend to create
excitement among learners as they develop their language proficiency, and thus the
teacher may need to guide them towards the most useful ones. Teachers need to
properly assess collocations carefully beforehand in order to decide which ones to use in
the classroom. Consequently, taking into consideration that there are many more
collocations than words, as many words occur in several different collocations, it is
quite understandable why students fail to produce “natural” sentences most of the time.
Below you will find more reasons why students encounter problems while
using collocations:
Some learners might over-generalize some structures and make mistakes .e.g.:
As “make” is common and may collocate with many nouns such as “cake”,
“noise”, etc. students tend to say “make homework” rather than ''do
hommework''.
Learners may sometimes translate word-for-word rather than chunk-for-chunk,
which leads to collocational mistakes.
72
Collocations surprisingly are not the same among all English's. Seidle and
McMordie (1978: 6) point out that American and British English exhibit
arbitrary differences in similar phrases. Thus, the Americans often say set the
table and make a decision, while the corresponding British phrases are lay the
table and take a decision.
Teachers should help their students overcome the above-mentioned problems by
designing instruction methods to focus on what they need. That is, the instruction
system should help learners avoid incongruity while assisting their fluency in
production. At this point, it would be useful to present the rationale and activities that
incorporate teaching collocation into our lessons, all designed to help our students
develop collocational competence. (i.e. the skill to select, store and retrieve chunks).
Based on the findings of the paper data collocation, the following reasons could
be used to discuss why Palestinian EFL learners made unacceptable collocations in their
writing. First, students translated Arabic sentences into English literally according to
the Arabic linguistic conventions, .e.g. no one can crash my dream to become a
translator; instead of (shatter my dream). Second, due to the lack of collocation
knowledge, some students might have thought that words such as make, do, and take
could replace one another .e.g., do profit; instead of (make a profit). Third, students
were used to learning words in isolation, so they know the dictionary meaning of a
word, but did not have adequate ability to join it with suitable alternatives to make their
sound natural. e.g. We won't let a bit of rain lose our fun; Instead of ( spoil our fun).
Data paper collection showed another result that those collocations with L1
equivalents were easier to produce than those without L1 equivalents. While in few
cases in the study; this equivalence between the two languages prevented some
participants from giving the correct answer, which they apparently knew. For example,
some of the ESL participants reported that items like take action, or have an effect,
which have Arabic equivalents, are Arabic combinations, and they expressed
uncertainty about the English equivalents of these items. As a result of their doubts, they
either left these items blank or gave wrong answers.
73
However, when looking more closely at the quantitative findings of the study,
the direction of mean scores of the forth level group to be different after four academic
years of learning more vocabulary and collocation to develop the use of verb-noun
English collocation. The quantitative findings assume the existence of statistically
significant differences between the average scores of the students of the fourth level and
their peers on first level average scores on the diagnostic test. The researcher used the
coefficient of Cohen to measure the impact of using the verb-noun collocation on the
level of students‟ paragraph competence.
As for the comparison between the scores of the forth level group and the first
level group in the diagnostic test, the results show substantial differences and
statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the two groups in the test
and these differences are in favor of the forth level group. The results of research
question puts forward at least two implications to the present literature on collocations.
The first implication is regarding the use of academic year as an independent variable to
measure subjects‟ use of verb-noun collocations in paragraph writing. It also shows
academic year can be an adequate measure of subjects‟ use of collocations in writing
competence. The second implication of the current study the use of verb-noun
collocations is an indicator of writing competence. The results show that students use
more collocations correctly in their fourth academic years than the first year which
indicates that more exposure to language leads to greater use of collocations.
All this indicates the existence of a positive impact of using verb-noun
collocation in paragraph writing competence. The finding supported the study‟s fifth
hypothesis that there was a significant difference between the collocational knowledge
of the two academic levels, the first and the fourth level. Thus, it becomes evident that
the number of learning years plays a positive role in acquiring L2 collocations. It might
be claimed that the poor performance of the freshmen EFL learners might be due to
their lack of knowledge of the meaning of the words individually and that may have
nothing to do with collocations.
However, the participants reported that they were familiar with the words that
were used in this study. In spite of their familiarity with the words individually, the
participants‟ performance was lower and their collocational knowledge was poorer than
74
expected. Also, it can be argued that the number of learning years can be responsible for
this difference in the performance.
The study results show that helping Palestinian Arab students to acquire the
stylistics of English for developing well-written paragraphs is not easy because they
transfer the style of their first language. In addition, they lack the necessary collocation
for expressing their thoughts appropriately. To do so, students should be aware from the
beginning of the differences between writing paragraphs and collocation in English and
in Arabic. Contrastive analysis would consciously help them realize the differences in
order to avoid making mistakes. In this implication, teachers need to become more
aware of problems that might result from interference from their learners‟ L1. Several
studies have shown the problems of L1 interference in learning certain types of
collocations (Bahns, 1993; Nesselhauf, 2005). Greater awareness of the specific
collocational problems learners are likely to have as a result of their L1 can only be
beneficial. Better informed teachers are more able to implement lessons addressing
the specific needs and backgrounds of their learners and this applies as much to
collocational knowledge as to any other aspect of language learning.
Learners can pay more attention to the frequency with which certain words
occur together and note them in order to use them in future language use. This way
learning can be more goal directed and language use can be more native like.
Language teachers can thus organize the material in a way that frequent collocations are
encountered by the students more often. This could be done through selecting reading
material than contain some important and frequent collocations. The collocations can be
highlighted in the text so that students will notice them and this may help them commit
those collocations to long term memory.
Palestinian EFL teachers should make students aware of lexical collocations
since the basic rule of language use is pedagogically at the heart of teaching and testing
of language competence and should be used for the design of appropriate teaching
resources and for the methodology of classroom instruction. In other words, teachers
need to use appropriate activities for teaching collocation. Activities need to be suitable
for the type of collocation being taught as well as the needs and abilities of learners.
Teachers also need to teach learners effective learning strategies that will enable them to
independently develop their collocational knowledge beyond the classroom.
75
The inadequate proficiency in the production of collocations, as shown in this
study, calls for a more constructive, instructional focus on collocations. A mixture of
approaches, such as explicit and implicit, is essential to generate a productive learning
environment. There are various kinds of activities and exercises that can enhance and
develop students‟ productivity skills, such as telling or writing stories of their own past
and then highlighting the collocations used. Additionally, teachers can use
“collocational grids” or “brainstorming” in which students are provided with words and
then asked to list all the acceptable collocates present. It is also very useful to focus on
collocations that have no equivalent in the students‟ first language.
Since writing is a productive skill, it is not possible for EFL learners to produce
their thoughts and ideas in writing accurately unless they know the expressions exactly.
In other words, the use of improper collocations might have a negative impact on the
quality of writing. The implication of the research questions is that the ability to
correctly use collocations in writing improves as the students‟ progress through their
academic years. Hence, it is not just knowledge of collocations that improves but also
the ability to use them as well. Once again, this must be seen within the context of the
education system or curriculum which does not explicitly teach collocations, and thus
implies a form of learning or acquisition of this ability.
John Sinclair (1991) gives a good instance of a pre-constructed phrase that speakers
choose instead of choosing individual words. The phrase (of course) operates as
effectively as a single word, Sinclair says, and “we are dealing with a fairly trivial
mismatch between the writing system and the grammar” (p. 110). Specifically, (of ) in
this phrase is not the preposition we find explained in traditional grammar books.
Furthermore, (course) is not the countable noun that dictionaries put forth; its meaning
is not the property of the word, but of the phrase. Therefore, to use it in a way that
fulfills its definition, i.e. if it were a countable noun in the singular, it would have to be
preceded by determiner to be grammatical.
In line with this notion, verb-noun collocation presents complete meaning while
used as phrase instead of choosing individual words. In noting this information, it is
reasonable to put forth that teachers should not teach collocation as individual items, but
rather as the collocate it is. For example, teachers can use synonyms to
76
replace collocation depending on the context. Learners will then understand the
collocation in this light, rather than a preposition not used in its traditional fashion
linked to a countable noun that here actually is not countable.
Smith (2005) states there are some reasons that collocation should be involved in
the curriculum: First, collocations are still problematic when non-native speakers try to
select the correct combination of words even if they know the individual words. The
need for learners to go beyond the intermediate plateau is the second reason. It is more
motivating for upper level students. Most of the time, they can cope with using
collocation but they try to avoid the more challenging tasks of advanced language
learning; the second reason is that possessing knowledge of collocations improves the
knowledge of vocabulary and helps fluency and decrease stress in communication. The
last reason suggests that collocation errors are more harmful to the communication skills
than the grammatical errors; because they result in producing unusual phrases or odd
expressions.
In conclusion, Palestinian Arab university students in EFL writing classes
should be given ample opportunities for practice in and outside the classroom in order to
be acquainted with the style of English for writing paragraphs appropriately using the
right expressions, cohesively uniting their thoughts besides considering the audience. In
addition, adopting techniques like contrastive and error analysis, different approaches as
the process and the free writing approaches would help these learners overcome their
difficulties in writing and start producing better writing samples. The findings of the
study show that the performance level of freshmen Palestinian university EFL learners
in using collocations can improve as they are exposed to more language input and by
several teaching methods which concentrate more on practicing real-life situations in a
safe environment; avoiding learning restricted to a particular work setting; learning
through reflection, and integrating excursions and/or guest lecturers into courses. These
can provide students with knowledge and expertise that senior colleagues normally
would offer.
77
The Significance of Using the Verb-noun Collocation as a Teaching
Method
The results of the statistical analysis have been validated through both literature
and the findings of this study. The tool of the study indicates that verb-noun collocation
is significant as an EFL teaching method. Within the learning of a verb-noun
collocation students become familiar with correct word joining and acceptable meaning
and sound natively. Such a learning environment can be more available with
collocation using; moreover, this rich environment helps acquiring language meaning
and function. Students may resort to the collocation dictionaries in their free time to
know some new verb-noun collocations which may provide authentic material in real
life situation; using collocation dictionaries help student to make sense of language item
and spare students‟ time and effort when they want produce language items correctly.
Verb-noun collocation can be taught via various materials which match different types
of learning styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. The expected result of such a
diversity of activities is successful learning by the majority of students. Verb-noun
collocation can also be presented via many types of exercises, controlled, semi
controlled, and free practice which suits different levels of students and helps gradual
and deep understanding of use and usage (form and meaning) of language items.
Finally, practicing variety of verb-noun collocation exercises repeatedly in authentic
material produced by native speakers helps eliminate confusion among word choosing,
and native expressions which are problematic areas Arab students encounter. In
addition, students do not feel that learning takes place in isolation from real life
activities. To conclude, verb-noun collocations act as a source of motivation and create
a state of content and satisfaction among learners.
78
5.8 Recommendations:
Colleges of Education
Upon the results of this study, colleges of education are recommended:
To enrich the English language curricula with language applied issues like
collocation.
To draw the student-teachers' attention to the benefits of collocation.
To keep developing the college material and strategies to cope with modern
Education method more than traditional one.
To create suitable circumstances for using English language in real life
situations.
To give more attention to productive language skills (writing and speaking)
within more intensive courses in this skills.
Recommendations for Curriculum Designers and Decision Makers
The researcher suggested the following recommendations to the curriculum
designers and decisions makers due to the great role they play in the educational
process:
Developing and enriching the Teacher's experience by more workshops and
holding training courses about using collocation.
Providing the school libraries with collocation dictionaries and references to be
used as language learning sources.
Training and encouraging students to use the verb-noun and other collocation
types to learn correct language.
Curriculum designers and decision makers should incorporate the appropriate
assistant material in the curriculum so as to achieve the harmony and sequence
of the learners needs.
Recommendations for Teachers of English
The researcher recommends the following to the teachers of English:
Teachers should increase their positive feelings towards the use of the verb-
noun collocation as providing interactive skills and not as receptive ones.
79
Teachers should adopt the use of verb-noun collocation to improve fair and
satisfactory language skills among the students.
Teachers are advised to use the verb-noun collocation to create real life
situations, that is to say, English should be taught in functional, practical,
realistic and in meaningful situations.
5.9. Suggestion for Further Studies
Complementary to the study results and recommendations, the researcher
suggested that it is important to conduct the following studies:
This type of research might also be conducted and applied on the series of
English collocation type (adjective + noun, adverb + adjective, noun+ noun,
noun +verb, verb+ noun, verb + expression with preposition, verb + adverb).
The further studies could focus on the connection between collocation or one
of its type with any other language skills such as (speaking, reading, listening).
The further studies may handle this study again by using experimental
approach or with different sample level.
Applying further studies on using the verb-noun collocation or any other
collocation types for other skills like fluency and accuracy.
Conducting studies on using the verb-noun collocation to develop listening and
speaking, reading and writing skills.
5.10 Conclusion
The findings of this thesis reveal that utilizing verb-noun collocations for
developing paragraph writing competence of EFL students in Gaza universities can be
considered worthwhile in learning and teaching English language to university
students. The use of verb-noun collocation seems to involve several learning
outcomes that are needed in the development of professional expertise. Furthermore,
students can act as a supplementary learning method alongside regular learning. In
other words, if students are to develop their knowledge and skills within a certain
frame, the verb-noun collocation may be a more appropriate choice to enhance word
formation and usage. Thus, if some students are encouraged to use the verb-noun
collocation facilities in their learning of English, then they are likely to outperform
those given regular class instruction.
80
It is concluded that stressing verb-noun collocations in teaching and learning
English particularly enhances students‟ EFL performance in general and their
command of paragraph writing in particular. Thus, the use of the verb-noun
collocations make EFL teaching easier than that teaching individual words. Hence, it
is recommended to also acknowledge the good effect of utilizing verb-noun
collocations in teaching and learning English. Thus, the more students understand how
a verb-noun collocation collocates, the more autonomous and empowered they will be
in the paragraph writing.
The findings of this thesis also accentuate the notion that verb-noun collocation
utilization skills do not develop by themselves, but they should actively be fostered in
higher education. Furthermore, the chance of enhancing English language learning
and teaching through utilizing verb-noun collocations are thus worth considering in
any language or other disciplines in higher education. After all, to provide students
with opportunities to gain knowledge and skills they need in their future learning of
foreign languages is relevant and essential.
81
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Appendixes
Appendix (1): Test letter judgment
Al-Azhar University- Gaza
Deanship of Postgraduate Studies & Scientific Research
Faculty of Education
Department of Curricula and Teaching Methods
Diagnostic collocation Test for Palestinian EFL Learners in Gaza Universities.
Dear Dr /Mr./Ms.…………………………………………
The researcher is conducting a study to obtain the Master's Degree in Curriculum and
English Teaching Methods.
The study title is,
" The Impact of Verb-Noun Collocations on the Paragraph Writing of
Palestinian EFL Learners in Gaza Universities."
The study tries to, explore the use of verb-noun collocations in paragraph writing of
English as foreign language (EFL) among Palestinian learners from the first to the
forth levels in four Palestinian universities in Gaza (Al-Azhar university – Gaza
university - and Al Aqsa university).
While this test is one of the requirements of this study. You are kindly invited to look
through the attached test and fill out the form below to indicate whether the items of
the test are suitable or not.
Your notes and responses will be highly appreciated and kept confidential.
A Item High Average Low
1 - The different items reflect the test objectives.
2 - The test items are suitable for students.
3 - The test layout is acceptable.
4 -The assigned time for the test is suitable.
Any further comments are highly appreciated.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Thanks a lot for your cooperation
91
Appindex:2 (diagnostic test)
Diagnostic Test
Name____________ Score___________
Date____________
****************************************************************************************
Part 1:
( 16 marks) section A ( 20 mints )
Choose the correct collocation to complete the sentence
1. At what time do you plan to ( shut / close ) the conference ?
2. I didn‟t know what to do when I got into my car and couldn't ( start / begin ) the
engine.
3. The children ( play / make ) a joke on the teacher by hiding under their desks
before she came into the room.
4. I'd like to ( take / get / make ) a withdrawal from my account please.
5. A : These cameras aren‟t as expensive as I thought!
B: That‟s because they use film. They're ( going / asking / giving ) cheap right now.
6. we ( had / spend ) great time at the party.
7. I usually find that I can ( trust / rely / depend ) my intuition.
Collocations
92
8. Joe ( made / had / took ) the impression that I didn‟t like Molly.
9. You must wear gloves in this cold or your fingers will ( do / have / go ) numb.
10. Tom and Ann are ( changing / moving ) house to be nearer Ann's elderly parents.
11. At the end of presentation we could ( raise / rise / arise ) any issues to discuss.
12. The standard of living has ( grown / risen / increased )in the last ten years.
13. we ( changed / exchanged / passed ) some interesting ideas with our colleagues.
14. The bill ( comes / arrives /gets ) to a total of 2658 dollars.
15. This paper ( proposes / presents ) the case for the complete revision of the theory.
16. The writer of the article ( explains / states / declares ) his opinion very clearly.
(14 marks ) Section B ( 20 mints )
Complete these collocation with correct verb :
1. ----------------- a conclusion . 2.----------------- support to an argument.
3.------------------- an analogy. 4. ----------------- the significance of a factor.
5. ------------- emphasis on one factor. 6. ------------- attention to a new trend.
7. ------------ a belief firmly. 8 . ------------ a cold.
9. to ------------ a loss. 10. to ---------- into partnership.
11. to ----------- market research. 12. to ----------- public.
13. to ---------- up a business . 14. to --------- into business.
assess – lay – lend – draw –go –launch –develop – make – draw – contract – go –
hold –catch – go – make – draw – go – set – conduct – float
93
Part 2:
1- Use the following words with their correct collocation to write a paragraph: (15 sentences).
The paragraph topic is ( how can you change your life). (6mints) (20marks)
(adopt –make –change –break –exchange )
(modification –a new approach –a habit –mind –ideas )
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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2- a. write a summary (15 sentences ) of a story you remember hearing or
reading, or a story of a film you have seen.
b. underline 5 verb noun collocations on your story.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best wishes
Writing
94
Appendix (3)
Sample test
95
96
97
98
99
100
Appendix (4)
Referee Committee
No. Name Qualification Institute
1. Prof. Sadeq Ferwana Ph. D in Methodology Islamic University
2. Mr. Saed al Sese M.A. in English Al- Azhar university
3. Mrs. Sabah El-Masry M.A. in English English Teacher at
UNRWA Gaza
4. Dr. Mohamed Hamadan Dr in Methodology
Associate Professor of
Curricula & English
Methodologies Gaza
University
5. Mrs. Jehan Al Agha M.A. in English English Teacher at
UNRWA Gaza
6. Dr. Abdallah Kuraz Dr in Literature Assistant professor at
Al- Azhar university
7. Mrs. Mona El khuzndar M.A. in English Al- Azhar university
8.
Dr. Basil S. Skaik
B.A. in English
Assistant Professor in
TESOL Al-Azhar
University
101
Appendix (5)
Facilitating Researcher‟s Task
